Peace! Pacquiao pastors here to stay

THERE’S need for an urgent correction.

Here it is: Manny Pacquiao has not stayed away from his Bible-packing pastor-friends. Neither has he dumped them.

“That would not make Manny look good,” Yolly Alfante, quoting a statement from the pastors’ group, told the Inquirer yesterday.

Alfante, president of the Mindanao Professional Boxing Federation, told this reporter about the absence of the pastors when she visited Pacquiao in General Santos City last week.

Have they disappeared for good or were just cooling their heels in the suburbs?

* * *

“Yes, I had seen the pastors before, but that day I did not see them,” Alfante explained. “I just said what I saw.”

It was not that simple.

Asked for further details, Alfante last week said she did try to communicate with Pacquiao, who was quite busy, through eye and hand signals.

Pacquiao, Alfante said, tried to say there was none or nothing, or something to that effect.

Here was where I committed a supreme boo-boo.

I next wrote that, “Knowing how Alfante had known Pacquiao since his hungry years, the boxing hero (must’ve) meant the pastors have been dumped for good.”

* * *

It was a gross exaggeration.

I was also very wrong.

Again, I’m offering Pacquiao and his pastor friends my sincerest apologies.

Explained Ms Alfonte, founder of the Buhay Kamao Foundation Inc. for which Pacquiao has offered to be honorary chair: “I have said it before and I will say it again. Manny has never changed. He’s the same God-loving and ever helpful man. Mabait, matulungin.”

Again, my apologies.

Kindly join me in praying for Manny Pacquiao.

May he have greater success in all his noble endeavors.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mexican pride Juan Manuel Marquez, against the wishes of elder advisers, appears headed for a fifth fight with Pacquiao, whom he knocked out cold last December in Las Vegas.

This surfaced after reports came from Mexico City that Marquez would ask for something like a $20-million purse from promoter Bob Arum.

Before that, Arum had postponed a scheduled dinner meeting with Marquez, while telling the Mexico ring icon to name his price.

Trainer Nacho Beristain had maintained there was no need for a fifth Marquez-Pacquiao clash “because there was nothing more to prove.”

WBC president Don Jose Sulaiman, explaining there should be no price tag for nobility, said there was no need for Marquez to risk everything, including Mexican pride, in an unnecessary fifth fight with Pacquiao.

Now, it appears it all boils down to a question of dollars, mounds and mounds of it.

* * *

(HAIL THE CHAMPS: Alessandra Isabela Narciso (DLSZ 2014) was named MVP and best setter in the recent Season 75 UAAP championship won by the De La Salle Zobel Junior Lady Spikers, via a rare three-peat, after besting the National University Lady Bullpups at the UE School grounds in Caloocan. Coached by Ace Gacutan, voted best coach of the UAAP Season 75, the team was composed of: Dawn Nicole Macandili, Best Libero; Kim Kianna Dy, Bettina Rose Caceres, Felicia Marie Cui, Mildred Thea Dizon, Bernie Briele Egoy, Meagan Marie Egoy, Theresa Maria Jose Endaya, Danielle Elisse P. Luna, Dawn Nicole Macandili, Alessandra Isabela Narciso, Julianne Marie Samonte, Denise San Jose, Rio M. Sumalinog, Ma. Criselda Rica Valenzuela.)