Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao has been so busy doing a thousand different things, he could not find time to keep his appointment with his surgeon in Los Angeles.
Pacquiao’s shoulder injury, which required an operation last May after his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. , was due for a checkup last July 4 to determine how it was healing.
It was announced in some papers about two weeks ago that the Pacquiaos were leaving for the United States to see the surgeon but they never did.
This incurred the ire of Top Rank promoter Bob Arum who labeled the Pacman “unprofessional.”
As it turned out, the couple was not bound for the United States when they left the country two weeks ago, but for Indonesia where Pacquiao was supposed to film a commercial and visit Mary Jane Veloso in prison. Veloso has been sentenced to death by firing squad but Pacquiao hopes to be able to get a reprieve for her.
* * *
According to my boxing colleagues, what has been taking much of the Pacquiaos’ time is the relocation of their children from Laguna, where they are enrolled at the Brent International School, to General Santos where the entire family will now be based.
Manny and Jinkee have decided they want a simple, rural life for the kids, but more importantly the couple wants the family to be together as often as possible.
“Manny also wants his kids to experience the life he did in his early years, although I don’t see how that’s possible—I mean returning to the past,” said the scribe.
“The Pacquiao kids—Michael Stephen 13, Emmanuel Jimuel 14, Mary Divine Grace 8, and Queen Elizabeth 6, will be transferred to the Hope Christian School in GenSan, where they will be steeped in Christian studies.”
“The fifth and youngest child Israel, is not yet of school age.”
According to our colleague, none of the four older Pacquiao kids has complained about the relocation to GenSan.
“They want the family to be together.”
* * *
Meanwhile, Pacquiao assured Arum that there is no cause for worry because his shoulder is mending properly, faster than expected in fact. He said he takes the promoter’s admonitions positively, “because he is like a father to me and is only looking out after my best interests.”
Manny is running for senator in the 2016 elections while Jinkee has opted to be full-time homemaker when her term as vice governor of Sarangani ends.