Pacquiao may run for president of Philippines
July 29, 2013
Manny Pacquiao is world-renowned for his career as a boxer, with eight championship belts - all in different weight classes - to his name as of August 2013. His other primary profession, as a member of the House of Representatives in the Philippines, has also earned him a significant amount of distinction among those in his home country. According to Bleacher Report, although his career as a boxer is not over, he has plans to further his political standings, potentially with a run for the presidency of his nation. These speculations are likely to promote a great deal of chatter in conversations conducted using international calling cards.
The news source reported that Pacquiao's statements were not definitive - he was asked in an interview if he had ever considered running for his country's highest political office and simply said that he had. He has thus far taken his tenure as a congressman seriously, having filed five bills, and when he was initially elected in 2010, his win was with a massive plurality. As his boxing career remains active, there is no real timetable for when and if he would run.
Pacquiao spoke of his ambitions frankly in the interview. "When I started boxing, of course I was planning, you know and thinking about getting to become a champion," he said. "So when I enter politics it's the same thing. But, you know, it's far away."
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that in a recent statement, Feliciano Belmonte, Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, said that Pacquiao would be best off running for another office before going straight from the House to the nation's presidency. As numerous presidents of the Philippines have taken the office after being senators, Belmonte stated that taking the path to that role - and focusing on his next boxing match, set for November 2013 in Macau - should be his priorities.