Pacquiao’s Political Rival Files Petition To Postpone Trilogy Bout

Manny Pacquiao is in the news again, this time as a senatorial candidate in his own country.

Bello insists a law, put in place to give candidates equal publicity when entering an election, will be broken if Pacquiao’s fight, and all its TV, radio and print exposure, goes ahead.

Bello also said Comelec should look into the fact that Pacquiao had agreed to schedule the fight a month before the May 9 polls.

Pacquiao is the prohibitive favorite in the scheduled 12-rounder even though he and Bradley had split their first two fights.

The former eight-division world champion later apologized for the comparison, but said that he stands behind his opposition to gay marriage.

Pacquiao has served on the Philippines’ House of Representatives since 2010 but has received criticism for rarely appearing for legislative duties.

The match is set to be held on April 9 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the boxers have fought twice previously.

The Catholic Church of the Philippines has defended boxer Manny Pacquiao after he commented that gay people were “worse than animals”. Following his comments, he issued an apology for hurting people’s sentiments, but users on social media continued to slam him while Nike ended its sponsorship deal with him.

Manny made the offensive remarks during a television interview last week, when he aired his views against same-sex marriage. “So this constitutes a tremendous disadvantage to other senatorial candidates as well as to candidates for other office”, Bello said.

“Furthermore, there is no legal ground to disqualify Pacquiao because a petition for disqualification is one which refers to a candidate’s lack of any of the qualifications required by the constitution or conviction of an election offense for violating election laws”, he added.

“Excited”, said Pacquiao. “That’s why I’m conditioning myself”.

The petitioner said he is praying that the Honorable Commission study the aforementioned situation and take the appropriate steps that it may deem proper to enforce Comelec Resolution No. 10049 and Republic Act No. 9006.