Pacquiao Rotary fighter vs polio

As he prepared for Saturday night’s showdown with Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao also had his sights set on another far more dangerous opponent: The crippling childhood disease polio.

Manny Pacquiao. AP FILE PHOTO

Pacquiao is an active member of Rotary International, a humanitarian service organization that has worked to eradicate polio for more than 20 years.

It’s a goal Pacquiao has embraced wholeheartedly by joining a growing roster of celebrities and public figures participating in Rotary’s “This Close” public awareness campaign, which carries the tagline: “We are this close to ending polio,” said a press statement from the Rotary Club.

During his pre-fight workouts in Los Angeles, Pacquiao wore a T-shirt bearing his “This Close” photo, said Liza Elorde, president of the Rotary Club of Manila 101, which Pacquiao joined in 2009. Sharp-eyed viewers of HBO’s “24/7” pre-fight series may have seen the shirt during the latest episode.

“I brought the shirt from Manila and asked him to wear it during his training, and he said ‘yes’ without hesitation,” said Elorde, who recently was sworn in as Rotary Club president by Pacquiao himself.

She is in Las Vegas because her son, Juan Miguel Elorde, also a professional boxer, is scheduled to fight Friday night at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. She said the young Elorde planned to wear Rotary’s familiar gear wheel logo on his trunks for his bout.

She said it was fitting that Pacquiao is active in the polio eradication effort. He was born in 1978, the year before Rotary began its pioneering work in polio prevention with a major project that reached millions of Filipino children—very likely the future champ himself—the oral vaccine.