Pacquiao for senator: Yahoo and boo-hoo!
I had a brief chat via e-mail recently with Associated Press boxing writer Tim Dahlberg.
Our topic: Manny Pacquiao’s decision to run for senator in the general elections next year.
“I haven’t been up on Filipino politics since [Ferdinand] Marcos left office, so I am probably the wrong person to ask [about Manny’s run],” Dahlberg confided.
However, the veteran scribe, one of the world’s foremost boxing reporters who has covered many, if not all, of Pacquiao’s mega bouts, offers advice, albeit unsolicited, to the people’s champion.
“If Manny wants to regain his position in boxing, it would be wise of him to concentrate” on his sport and ignore politics, Dahlberg said. “This is especially true since he likely has only a few fights left late in his career.”
Dahlberg is definitely on the same page with Bob Arum, the fighter’s promoter. Boxing’s best salesman senses that his cash cow’s career is ending and suggests that Pacquiao should at least concentrate on fighting before he goes on the campaign trail.
The Mindanao congressman’s next fight will probably be his last, Arum disclosed to reporters in New York recently and hinted that work should start now to select an opponent. The projected match would have to take place no later than April 9, a month before the elections.
The candidates’ pool is star-studded for Pacquiao’s possible passing-of-the-torch bout. It includes England’s Amir Khan, old nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez, super lightweight titlist Victor Postol and his WBO counterpart Terence Crawford.
The eight division champ’s senatorial run will likely galvanize his bond with the masses. In a country where personalities, not issues, matter in elections, he could be a cinch to win one of the 12 Senate slates available.
This scenario has become a lightning rod for dissent from voters who rue his lack of education and experience to participate in debates in the most exclusive political club in the country.
But then, voters have sent misfits to that august body before.
As a representative from Sarangani province, he showed up for work only four times during the 16th Congress, a glaring truancy his critics loathe and exploit.
His detractors say he is a terrible congressman, anyway. Good thing he never shows up for work.
I don’t dig his candidacy. But hey, it’s a free country.
* * *
Ernesto Gonzales as a sportswriter and editor has always kept me in awe.
Along with the brat pack of our era as scribes, I considered Ernie a role model. The ease with which he conducted interviews was exceeded only by how well he wrote his story for the morning daily.
Fast forward to last week, and I am elated to tell you that Ernie, until recently this newspaper’s Sports desk consultant, is back in a jiffy. This time he joins Recah Trinidad, Beth Celis, Sev Sarmenta and I as regularly featured Inquirer Sports columnists.
In his inaugural column, he explains the complete turnabout of the PBA when it comes to supporting the next Gilas campaign after failing to help cobble together the league’s best talents for the recent FIBA Asia Championships.
Judging from the phenomenal response to his first “Wild Card” column, I can say that Ernie is back in style.
