Gutsy Guanzon pesters Pacquiao

“That woman’s got balls,” my barangay buddy Romeo Cabbab exclaimed in vivid praise of national elections official Rowena Guanzon.
Cabbab is all out for the gutsy Guanzon after the Elections Commissioner spoke her mind.
She opines that boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, who’s seeking a seat as senator of the realm, should refrain from entering the ring with Timothy Bradley for his supposed farewell fight in Las Vegas on April 9.
Guanzon says the high profile match violates the Fair Election Act because it gives the 8-division world champ unfair publicity prior to polling.
The woman commissioner is damn right. Too bad her opinion is just her own and she would have to defer to the whole Commission on Elections to discuss and act on the issue —brought to light via a petition by ex-congressman Walden Bello, also a senatorial candidate in the May 9 national elections.
Bello like Guanzon makes sense. In his petition to compel the Comelec to stop the Pacquiao fight, the former solon says the match would run counter to a law that gives candidates equal access to media publicity and thwarts television and radio programs from backing a particular candidate.
“He (Pacquiao) has all the rights to exercise his boxing profession after the elections,” Bello’s ringing petition noted, “but to schedule his boxing bout during the campaign period and close to the elections is obvious, taking advantage of his personality and his profession extending undue benefit to his candidacy.”
Recent public opinion polls place Pacquaio in a tie with former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for 8th place among senatorial candidates.
Too bad Bello, well equipped, education and experience wise to tackle senatorial chores, is far behind in the same polls.
Too bad Comelec Chair Andres Bautista says he personally believes the election body could not stop the match from taking place and reschedule it after the May 9 voting.
The Bello petition to stick to the rule of law, and other similar pleas that have sprouted since, are among the distractions Pacquiao faces prior to the Bradley fight.
Gabriel Salvador, a waiter who serves well-heeled business executives at a Beverly Hills restaurant, is suing Pacquiao’s camp and CBS Corp.
He is claiming that both parties reneged on a promised finder’s fee for helping set up a meeting with CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves and Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach that helped seal the so called bout of the century between the Filipino ring icon and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Salvador is asking $8.6 million from the $430 million the disappointing fight generated in earnings.
Meanwhile, former Los Angeles Lakers superstar Magic Johnson will not be at the MGM Grand in Vegas for the scheduled Pacquiao-Bradley 3,.
Johnson, whose son E. J. is a homesexual, says he won’t even subscribe to pay-per-view, after Pacquiao riled the gay community recently.
In a TV interview about same-sex marriage, Pacquiao, the politician, said “If we approve of male on male, female on female, then man is worse than animals.”
He has since apologized for his controversial reply after riling sports and entertainment personalities and losing Nike’s endorsement contract.