PACQUIAO RETURNS TO THE EMBRACE OF HIS COUNTRYMEN AND THE TOUGHEST FIGHT OF HIS LIFE
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 21 Mar 2010
Manny Pacquiao, the “Fighter of the Decade” and pound-for-pound king returns home Monday morning into the warm embrace of millions of his countrymen who have continued to enjoy his glorious performances in the ring and scores of young fighters whom Pacquiao has inspired and for whom he has opened doors like no other.
Yet, he comes home by his own admission, to face the toughest fight of life when he takes on Roy Chiongbian of the rich, powerful and politically entrenched Chiongbian clan in a battle for the lone congressional seat of Sarangani.
As he prepares to plunge into a relentless campaign that plans to match his training for a fight; Pacquiao was upset and angry over the negative publicity caused by shenanigans of people claiming to be members of Team Pacquiao. He plans to institute measures to rid himself of so-called leeches and small-time crooks who use his name because it could adversely effect his election campaign anchored on caring for the poor and helping his chosen presidential candidate Sen. Manny Villar’s promised good governance campaign.
One of the stories that gave both Pacquiao and the Philippines a bad name was the report carried on various internet sites that several individuals used fake media credentials to enter the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
Dong Secuya who owns the popular philboxing.com site and didn't go to Dallas said six individuals not even remotely connected with Philboxing had claimed they were reporters from the site and obtained credentials. In fact one of the impostors was wearing a credential with the name Dong Secuya.
When we asked Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz about the reports he told us “I don’t have a problem with that because they are true and maybe that will wake Manny up. But that’s true. That happened.”
Koncz said that when he informed Pacquiao that “some people got caught in Dallas with fake credentials, he was very upset.”
Koncz identified the individual allegedly responsible for the racket as Jeff De Guzman, a hanger-on who even in the past had claimed to be Pacquiao’s physical therapist which was flatly denied by Pacquiao himself.
Koncz revealed that after being virtually ejected from Team Pacquiao “now he’s trying to go back but after I told Manny that he did it, he must have found out that we knew and never showed his face again anywhere around us.” Koncz said Pacquiao was “very angry.”
Koncz confirmed what insidesports.ph had learned before which was that even after the fight with Miguel Cotto, de Guzman “was representing himself to Cotto as Manny’s exclusive agent for San Miguel and that he would get him ( Cotto) a commercial with San Miguel and that Manny promised to buy him a first class ticket to come to his birthday party.”
When Pacquiao was informed he said he would handle Cotto's hotel accommodation but he was not going to buy three roundtrip plane tickets for Cotto and his party.
De Guzman was also reportedly responsible for inviting David Diaz and Edwin Valero for Pacquiao’s birthday bash in 2008 in General Santos City and Pacquiao was eventually forced to pay for the airline tickets and their hotel accommodations.
Some others around Pacquiao have been castigated in the past for stealing substantial sums of money from Pacquiao including one individual who cashed his Internal Revenue Service refund check amounting to over $100,000 and the supposed wife of a driver who forged Pacquiao’s signature on checks amounting to almost $200,000 and cashed them at the branch of Wells Fargo bank and faces criminal charges filed by the bank.
The troubles behind him for the moment, the pound-for-pound king will pay his usual courtesy call on President Arroyo who has been a staunch admirer and supporter of Pacquiao even before he was the superstar he is today, a motorcade along city streets in Manila, an appearance at a concert at the SM Mall of Asia and a dinner hosted by Solar Sports will end a busy day after which Pacquiao, wife Jinkee and members of his entourage will fly to General Santos City to plunge into his election campaign in earnest.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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