Mikhail Bakunin
Team Owner
A week in the Philippines with Manny Pacquiao ... future president?
Manny Pacquiao's boxing future -- Mayweather? McGregor? Crawford? -- is unclear. But in the Philippines, his government career -- and a possible presidential run -- feels almost preordained. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
Feb 26, 2020
SENATOR MANNY PACQUIAO is sitting in the second row of a black government Escalade, his left foot on the center console, a 9 mm handgun in the seatback in front of him. A security van hugging the back bumper is filled with Pacquiao's assistants and several members of the National Police, their fingers on the triggers of the M16s that lie across their laps. There are two police motorcycles in front, weaving around Manila traffic, their cartoonish horns burping out pleas for space that doesn't exist. Outside the windows, the alleys and side streets clog with people and motorbikes and bicycles. The city closes around us like a fist.
The Senate session has recessed for Christmas, and the holiday traffic has turned a 10-minute drive on Manila's main highway, the EDSA, into an hour. Pacquiao looks out the window at the endless scroll of tired faces peering down from dirty buses and up from tiny cars on this eternally congested beltway. They have no idea the country's most famous man is behind the darkened windows and chirping motorcycles. It's his 41st birthday, and preparations for tonight's massive and lavish party -- an annual exercise in opulence, idolatry and patronage -- have been in the works for weeks.
Pacquiao's birthday is only half-jokingly considered an unofficial national holiday. During the past week, I have seen him be serenaded with "Happy Birthday" an infinite number of times in a near-infinite number of places: a sporting goods store in a high-end Manila mall, his Senate office, the Senate floor, his home. Home is where this line of cars is eventually headed, where two makeup artists and two hairdressers are setting up shop. Three laundry-sized bags of boxing gloves sit in the entry, waiting for his signature. Ten cases of red wine are about to be hauled into the living room for the after-party.
Pacquiao, with wife Jinkee, loves "The Godfather" -- it's his phone's ringtone and was the theme of his 41st birthday party. Veejay Villafranca for ESPN
Pacquiao's phone is ringing continually in the car, and each time the theme from "The Godfather" fills the sealed cabin. After a few notes, it's clear he's not going to answer the calls or stop the music. The song ends, then starts again. Each time, he looks at the phone to check the caller and places it back in his lap. The music continues, and by the time it becomes clear the Godfather theme is going to take this ride with us, Pacquiao's assistant, David Sisson, motions for me to begin asking questions. I have been waiting for the music to stop, or for the phone to be answered; Pacquiao, apparently, has been waiting for me.
I have come here to spend a week observing Pacquiao as a political entity and to see firsthand how his alliance with Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has turned him into a front-runner to succeed Duterte when the country elects a new president in 2022. Mostly, I am here to see firsthand how the most popular man in the Philippines became one of the most powerful athletes in the world.
Pacquiao's life is like scripture in the Philippines. It is an argument against limits, a source of pride amid despair, and hope amid hopelessness. His story is so well-known, so ingrained in the minds of the Filipino people, that it long ago became a commodity. He is a vessel into which everyone, regardless of circumstance, can pour their visions of a country and its people. He is the first boxer to win 12 titles in eight weight classes and a man who has parlayed his reputation as the champion of his people into a political career that earned him Duterte's imprimatur as his chosen successor.
How did this happen? How did the boy who grew up in a homemade hut with a dirt floor and a coconut-leaf roof, who claims to have made his way through unimaginable deprivation by adhering to his mother's commandments -- don't beg; don't steal -- become this man, one of the Philippines' 24 senators, protected by heavy artillery as he is escorted across town to a glass-and-steel mansion? He is a symbol of the possible, and his utility is boundless. The rich and powerful, the poor and desperate -- they can all find what they want or need in this man and his story.
It is a tribute.
It is a warning.
THE PHILIPPINES IS a complicated place, and the country's problems are not hidden. The abject desperation in many areas of metro Manila is obvious. Near the airport along the EDSA, as motorcycles and bicycles split lanes with the barest possible clearance, the driver motions for me to look out at a 20-foot wall that fronts the road. There are three young men sitting atop the wall, swinging their feet and carrying on an energetic conversation over the pungent exhaust and endless noise of the world's worst traffic.
"How did they get up there?" I ask.
Despite his relative inexperience in government, Pacquiao is in the process of building his own dynastic political family, including brother Bobby, seen in his campaign poster from last spring. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
He chuckles (left unspoken: stupid American) and tells me about what I can't see on the other side of the wall. It's a cemetery, he says, and those three guys mounted the wall from that side because they live there. Still confused, I wait until we reach the next intersection, where I can see that the cemetery is a matrix of concrete walls with compartments on the side, probably eight high, like a condo for the afterlife. The slots that have yet to be filled by caskets house some of Manila's poorest families, the living awaiting eviction from the dead.
We pass over and around similar scenes as the Escalade makes its way from the Senate building to Pacquiao's home. Every vein in this metropolitan area of more than 13 million is clogged with people and vehicles and plasmic energy. These are his people, the ones who draw strength from his story, who stop their lives every time he fights, and the ones who will decide whether he is the country's next president. The global rise of populist strongmen like his ally Duterte, men who have weaponized the rhetoric of strength, is predicated on its supposed ability to elevate and protect these people. It is a phenomenon Jonathan Miller, in his book "Rodrigo Duterte: Fire and Fury in the Philippines," calls the Strongman Paradox. Citizens believe they are empowering themselves by electing such a leader, when in reality everything the strongman gains, the populace loses.
But when I ask Pacquiao whether he sees himself as an heir to Duterte's populist throne, he thinks for a moment and says, "Populist? I'm not thinking about that. What I'm thinking is to share my knowledge about humanity, relationship to God, about being fair to everyone and compassionate."
The answer is emblematic of Pacquiao's political platform: anodyne, with no discernible ideology. "Where I am right now is God's will," he says 10 minutes and three Godfather themes later. "I think it is a calling." He pauses and giggles as a prelude to a punchline: "We make this country great again."
Listen: Tim Keown discusses Manny Pacquiao's presidential campaign and his trip to the Philippines on the ESPN Daily podcast.
"Some people would say his political future is fate, or destiny," says Sen. Richard Gordon, a longtime power in Philippine politics and a former presidential candidate. "I think he has all the tools to prove he can handle it, but he has to be careful choosing his friends."
Is Pacquiao capable of governing a complex country of 100 million people? Is the presidency something he wants, or something he feels obliged to pursue as the country's most famous man? Those questions seem increasingly irrelevant. His ascendance feels preordained, as if the arc of his story demands it. His Senate term ends in '22, so he will either have to run for reelection to the Senate, run for vice president or run to succeed Duterte. There have been breadcrumbs; he earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Makati University in December through a fast-track alternative education program. He still pines for one more megafight payday -- Pacquiao-Mayweather 2? Conor McGregor? -- to cushion the demands of his expensive lifestyle and the ever-changing, endless menagerie of paid help. Still, he will be 43 by the time Filipinos elect their next president; it's difficult to imagine that he'll remain a credible boxer beyond that point.
His status as a national icon could easily carry him to the presidency. What comes next would be far from simple. "The country is very complicated," Gordon says. "It isn't easy to just come in and say 'I'm going to be president.' He's going to have to answer to the population." More than 20% of the Philippine population lives in extreme poverty, which means more than 20 million people are subsisting on $1.90 or less per day. Pacquiao's family was once part of that group; now he is worth an estimated $200 million. As the turn signal clicks endlessly at a traffic light, Pacquiao says, "The solution to this traffic is first more overpasses and skyways -- and discipline." His eyebrows bounce as he says the word; it's a gesture he employs often to punctuate a point or convey approval. "Yes -- discipline."
Pacquiao, who is still hoping for at least one more big fight before he retires, attempts to balance his training regimen with the Senate calendar. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
This is his story: the discipline to lift himself out of the grimmest circumstances to become this man, in this car, with this security detail, heading to that shining house. And see: It could be everybody's story. By my third day in Manila, the idea that Filipinos can lift themselves out of poverty -- and traffic -- through discipline begins to feel like bumper sticker politics. Duterte's policies -- cleaning up the streets, waging war on drug cartels, dealers and users -- were described by Pacquiao himself as proof that God "anointed" Duterte to discipline a country that had lost its soul, as if the lack of opportunity that leads to desperation and drug abuse is a moral failing and not a societal one.
"Anytime [Pacquiao] is in the ring, the entire nation is united," says professor Severo Madrona Jr., dean of the school of law at City University of Pasay and a city attorney for Pasay, a city inside metropolitan Manila. "But if he starts with his political -- and religious -- tirades, there goes the division."
A POLITICIAN WHO aligns himself with Duterte aligns himself with Duterte's drug war. It is the third rail of Philippine politics, and inside the country -- and especially inside the Pacquiao camp -- it is believed that nobody from the outside can comprehend the extent of the problem. Outsiders can't bend their minds around the vast number of shipping lanes and ports to offload shabu -- the regional term for meth -- that exist in a country of more than 7,000 islands. Nearly everyone I encountered during a week in metro Manila professed to be affected by the scourge of drugs. An airport policeman recounted the drugs he and his colleagues confiscated in the span of two weeks -- 15 kilograms of shabu this week, 8 kilos last week -- and says the problem is so bad for him and his family that he calls the police to intervene at his apartment complex because he fears retaliation against his children. "And I'm a police officer," he says.
The efficacy of the drug war has been called into question; Vice President Leni Robredo, who leads the opposition to Duterte and briefly headed an anti-drug committee, announced in January that Duterte's policies have not resulted in a reduction in drug trafficking. (The vice presidency in the Philippines is an independently elected office.) She estimated that just 1% of the local drug supply has been intercepted during Duterte's presidency. There is significant debate regarding the number of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines since the onset of Duterte's drug war. Over a year ago, the United Nations' Commissioner for Human Rights estimated more than 27,000 deaths.
"This is all unfair to the president," Pacquiao says when I mention the killings. It is all so obvious to him, and he has adopted the tone of someone who has explained this a thousand times and is willing to do it just once more. "This is reality: It's unfair to the president that he's criticized by other people and other countries. He's not doing everything they are claiming that he is doing -- the extrajudicial killings."
Of course, Duterte has boasted of killing drug dealers himself. During a meeting with business leaders in Manila in 2016, Duterte said, according to The Manila Times, "In Davao, I used to do it personally -- just to show to the guys that if I can do it, so can you." He claims to have ridden around in a motorcycle "looking for a confrontation so I could kill." When confronted with this fact, Pacquiao dismisses Duterte's rhetoric, saying, "Duterte is very smart, and because of that he is good at psychology. He talks like a warning. That's his style."
If it is a psychological tactic, it's hard to deny that it's working. Duterte -- who enjoys the nickname "Duterte Harry" -- had an approval rating of 87% in a Pulse Asia Research Inc. survey conducted in December. (While Duterte was mayor of Davao City, his favorables were even more Putinesque, leading many critics to believe they arose from fear of expressing dissent.) Hearing the support for Duterte's ruthless policies among Filipino citizens can be jarring. A journalist in Manila who has covered Pacquiao told me, "The people who are being killed are the people who deserve to be killed." But what about due process, I ask, and the potential for police or vigilantes to kill their enemies and justify their actions by claiming the victim was part of the drug trade? He just shrugs.
Pacquiao, at home with his family, is loath to speak outright about a possible presidential run, saying only, "Where I am right now is God's will." Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
"People love him," Pacquiao says of Duterte, "because actually he's not doing all of those abuses. In fact, more than 1,000 policemen have been dismissed from the service. Duterte told them, 'Do not abuse, because I will not tolerate you.' Do not abuse your power -- this is what he said. If you're performing your duty and putting your life in danger, why let them kill you? You kill them."
Pacquiao is obsessed with chess. He plays every day, and often through the night, in his home office. He sits quietly, in a big chair behind a big desk, scrutinizing the board as if it's speaking to him. His opponent -- often his personal lawyer, Tom Falgui, known in these circles only as Attorney Tom -- sits on the other side surrounded by men of varying employment who would prefer he lose to their boss. As Pacquiao surveys the traffic and talks about Duterte, his friend of 15 years and a man he once credited for organizing one of his early fights, I begin to wonder whether these answers are a byproduct of seeing life through the prism of pieces moving on a board. Even if Pacquiao did disagree on policy, Duterte's popularity and stranglehold on power turns even the mildest dissent into political suicide.
"Certainly, Pacquiao's not the first one to deny the killings are happening," says Carlos Conde, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes in the Philippines. "It's not even just denial -- it's a willingness to mislead people. I don't think he's that misinformed about what is happening. He's doing his bit to deflect criticism of the drug war. To deny this is happening is offensive to me as an advocate.
"Again, that tells you where he's headed when he becomes president. These issues are going to be around longer than Duterte."
Pacquiao's devotion to Duterte's authoritarian policies could seem to conflict with his image as a humble boxer and benevolent philanthropist, but there is almost nothing in his legislative record that prioritizes the poor or disenfranchised. His rhetoric on LGBTQ rights is shocking -- he once said homosexuals "are worse than animals" before issuing a qualified apology ("I'm just telling the truth of what the Bible says") -- and his reliance on his fundamentalist religious views as a guide to his political decisions is seen as problematic by the human rights community.
The words of a Filipino journalist who has documented the drug war in some of Manila's poorest neighborhoods bounce through my head. "With his background, Pacquiao could be the voice of the masses," he told me. "I live for the day when he stands up and says, 'Stop killing the poor.'"
Manny Pacquiao's boxing future -- Mayweather? McGregor? Crawford? -- is unclear. But in the Philippines, his government career -- and a possible presidential run -- feels almost preordained. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
Feb 26, 2020
-
Tim KeownESPN Senior Writer
SENATOR MANNY PACQUIAO is sitting in the second row of a black government Escalade, his left foot on the center console, a 9 mm handgun in the seatback in front of him. A security van hugging the back bumper is filled with Pacquiao's assistants and several members of the National Police, their fingers on the triggers of the M16s that lie across their laps. There are two police motorcycles in front, weaving around Manila traffic, their cartoonish horns burping out pleas for space that doesn't exist. Outside the windows, the alleys and side streets clog with people and motorbikes and bicycles. The city closes around us like a fist.
The Senate session has recessed for Christmas, and the holiday traffic has turned a 10-minute drive on Manila's main highway, the EDSA, into an hour. Pacquiao looks out the window at the endless scroll of tired faces peering down from dirty buses and up from tiny cars on this eternally congested beltway. They have no idea the country's most famous man is behind the darkened windows and chirping motorcycles. It's his 41st birthday, and preparations for tonight's massive and lavish party -- an annual exercise in opulence, idolatry and patronage -- have been in the works for weeks.
Pacquiao's birthday is only half-jokingly considered an unofficial national holiday. During the past week, I have seen him be serenaded with "Happy Birthday" an infinite number of times in a near-infinite number of places: a sporting goods store in a high-end Manila mall, his Senate office, the Senate floor, his home. Home is where this line of cars is eventually headed, where two makeup artists and two hairdressers are setting up shop. Three laundry-sized bags of boxing gloves sit in the entry, waiting for his signature. Ten cases of red wine are about to be hauled into the living room for the after-party.
Pacquiao, with wife Jinkee, loves "The Godfather" -- it's his phone's ringtone and was the theme of his 41st birthday party. Veejay Villafranca for ESPN
Pacquiao's phone is ringing continually in the car, and each time the theme from "The Godfather" fills the sealed cabin. After a few notes, it's clear he's not going to answer the calls or stop the music. The song ends, then starts again. Each time, he looks at the phone to check the caller and places it back in his lap. The music continues, and by the time it becomes clear the Godfather theme is going to take this ride with us, Pacquiao's assistant, David Sisson, motions for me to begin asking questions. I have been waiting for the music to stop, or for the phone to be answered; Pacquiao, apparently, has been waiting for me.
I have come here to spend a week observing Pacquiao as a political entity and to see firsthand how his alliance with Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has turned him into a front-runner to succeed Duterte when the country elects a new president in 2022. Mostly, I am here to see firsthand how the most popular man in the Philippines became one of the most powerful athletes in the world.
Pacquiao's life is like scripture in the Philippines. It is an argument against limits, a source of pride amid despair, and hope amid hopelessness. His story is so well-known, so ingrained in the minds of the Filipino people, that it long ago became a commodity. He is a vessel into which everyone, regardless of circumstance, can pour their visions of a country and its people. He is the first boxer to win 12 titles in eight weight classes and a man who has parlayed his reputation as the champion of his people into a political career that earned him Duterte's imprimatur as his chosen successor.
How did this happen? How did the boy who grew up in a homemade hut with a dirt floor and a coconut-leaf roof, who claims to have made his way through unimaginable deprivation by adhering to his mother's commandments -- don't beg; don't steal -- become this man, one of the Philippines' 24 senators, protected by heavy artillery as he is escorted across town to a glass-and-steel mansion? He is a symbol of the possible, and his utility is boundless. The rich and powerful, the poor and desperate -- they can all find what they want or need in this man and his story.
It is a tribute.
It is a warning.
THE PHILIPPINES IS a complicated place, and the country's problems are not hidden. The abject desperation in many areas of metro Manila is obvious. Near the airport along the EDSA, as motorcycles and bicycles split lanes with the barest possible clearance, the driver motions for me to look out at a 20-foot wall that fronts the road. There are three young men sitting atop the wall, swinging their feet and carrying on an energetic conversation over the pungent exhaust and endless noise of the world's worst traffic.
"How did they get up there?" I ask.
Despite his relative inexperience in government, Pacquiao is in the process of building his own dynastic political family, including brother Bobby, seen in his campaign poster from last spring. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
He chuckles (left unspoken: stupid American) and tells me about what I can't see on the other side of the wall. It's a cemetery, he says, and those three guys mounted the wall from that side because they live there. Still confused, I wait until we reach the next intersection, where I can see that the cemetery is a matrix of concrete walls with compartments on the side, probably eight high, like a condo for the afterlife. The slots that have yet to be filled by caskets house some of Manila's poorest families, the living awaiting eviction from the dead.
We pass over and around similar scenes as the Escalade makes its way from the Senate building to Pacquiao's home. Every vein in this metropolitan area of more than 13 million is clogged with people and vehicles and plasmic energy. These are his people, the ones who draw strength from his story, who stop their lives every time he fights, and the ones who will decide whether he is the country's next president. The global rise of populist strongmen like his ally Duterte, men who have weaponized the rhetoric of strength, is predicated on its supposed ability to elevate and protect these people. It is a phenomenon Jonathan Miller, in his book "Rodrigo Duterte: Fire and Fury in the Philippines," calls the Strongman Paradox. Citizens believe they are empowering themselves by electing such a leader, when in reality everything the strongman gains, the populace loses.
But when I ask Pacquiao whether he sees himself as an heir to Duterte's populist throne, he thinks for a moment and says, "Populist? I'm not thinking about that. What I'm thinking is to share my knowledge about humanity, relationship to God, about being fair to everyone and compassionate."
The answer is emblematic of Pacquiao's political platform: anodyne, with no discernible ideology. "Where I am right now is God's will," he says 10 minutes and three Godfather themes later. "I think it is a calling." He pauses and giggles as a prelude to a punchline: "We make this country great again."
Listen: Tim Keown discusses Manny Pacquiao's presidential campaign and his trip to the Philippines on the ESPN Daily podcast.
"Some people would say his political future is fate, or destiny," says Sen. Richard Gordon, a longtime power in Philippine politics and a former presidential candidate. "I think he has all the tools to prove he can handle it, but he has to be careful choosing his friends."
Is Pacquiao capable of governing a complex country of 100 million people? Is the presidency something he wants, or something he feels obliged to pursue as the country's most famous man? Those questions seem increasingly irrelevant. His ascendance feels preordained, as if the arc of his story demands it. His Senate term ends in '22, so he will either have to run for reelection to the Senate, run for vice president or run to succeed Duterte. There have been breadcrumbs; he earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Makati University in December through a fast-track alternative education program. He still pines for one more megafight payday -- Pacquiao-Mayweather 2? Conor McGregor? -- to cushion the demands of his expensive lifestyle and the ever-changing, endless menagerie of paid help. Still, he will be 43 by the time Filipinos elect their next president; it's difficult to imagine that he'll remain a credible boxer beyond that point.
His status as a national icon could easily carry him to the presidency. What comes next would be far from simple. "The country is very complicated," Gordon says. "It isn't easy to just come in and say 'I'm going to be president.' He's going to have to answer to the population." More than 20% of the Philippine population lives in extreme poverty, which means more than 20 million people are subsisting on $1.90 or less per day. Pacquiao's family was once part of that group; now he is worth an estimated $200 million. As the turn signal clicks endlessly at a traffic light, Pacquiao says, "The solution to this traffic is first more overpasses and skyways -- and discipline." His eyebrows bounce as he says the word; it's a gesture he employs often to punctuate a point or convey approval. "Yes -- discipline."
Pacquiao, who is still hoping for at least one more big fight before he retires, attempts to balance his training regimen with the Senate calendar. Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
This is his story: the discipline to lift himself out of the grimmest circumstances to become this man, in this car, with this security detail, heading to that shining house. And see: It could be everybody's story. By my third day in Manila, the idea that Filipinos can lift themselves out of poverty -- and traffic -- through discipline begins to feel like bumper sticker politics. Duterte's policies -- cleaning up the streets, waging war on drug cartels, dealers and users -- were described by Pacquiao himself as proof that God "anointed" Duterte to discipline a country that had lost its soul, as if the lack of opportunity that leads to desperation and drug abuse is a moral failing and not a societal one.
"Anytime [Pacquiao] is in the ring, the entire nation is united," says professor Severo Madrona Jr., dean of the school of law at City University of Pasay and a city attorney for Pasay, a city inside metropolitan Manila. "But if he starts with his political -- and religious -- tirades, there goes the division."
A POLITICIAN WHO aligns himself with Duterte aligns himself with Duterte's drug war. It is the third rail of Philippine politics, and inside the country -- and especially inside the Pacquiao camp -- it is believed that nobody from the outside can comprehend the extent of the problem. Outsiders can't bend their minds around the vast number of shipping lanes and ports to offload shabu -- the regional term for meth -- that exist in a country of more than 7,000 islands. Nearly everyone I encountered during a week in metro Manila professed to be affected by the scourge of drugs. An airport policeman recounted the drugs he and his colleagues confiscated in the span of two weeks -- 15 kilograms of shabu this week, 8 kilos last week -- and says the problem is so bad for him and his family that he calls the police to intervene at his apartment complex because he fears retaliation against his children. "And I'm a police officer," he says.
The efficacy of the drug war has been called into question; Vice President Leni Robredo, who leads the opposition to Duterte and briefly headed an anti-drug committee, announced in January that Duterte's policies have not resulted in a reduction in drug trafficking. (The vice presidency in the Philippines is an independently elected office.) She estimated that just 1% of the local drug supply has been intercepted during Duterte's presidency. There is significant debate regarding the number of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines since the onset of Duterte's drug war. Over a year ago, the United Nations' Commissioner for Human Rights estimated more than 27,000 deaths.
"This is all unfair to the president," Pacquiao says when I mention the killings. It is all so obvious to him, and he has adopted the tone of someone who has explained this a thousand times and is willing to do it just once more. "This is reality: It's unfair to the president that he's criticized by other people and other countries. He's not doing everything they are claiming that he is doing -- the extrajudicial killings."
Of course, Duterte has boasted of killing drug dealers himself. During a meeting with business leaders in Manila in 2016, Duterte said, according to The Manila Times, "In Davao, I used to do it personally -- just to show to the guys that if I can do it, so can you." He claims to have ridden around in a motorcycle "looking for a confrontation so I could kill." When confronted with this fact, Pacquiao dismisses Duterte's rhetoric, saying, "Duterte is very smart, and because of that he is good at psychology. He talks like a warning. That's his style."
If it is a psychological tactic, it's hard to deny that it's working. Duterte -- who enjoys the nickname "Duterte Harry" -- had an approval rating of 87% in a Pulse Asia Research Inc. survey conducted in December. (While Duterte was mayor of Davao City, his favorables were even more Putinesque, leading many critics to believe they arose from fear of expressing dissent.) Hearing the support for Duterte's ruthless policies among Filipino citizens can be jarring. A journalist in Manila who has covered Pacquiao told me, "The people who are being killed are the people who deserve to be killed." But what about due process, I ask, and the potential for police or vigilantes to kill their enemies and justify their actions by claiming the victim was part of the drug trade? He just shrugs.
Pacquiao, at home with his family, is loath to speak outright about a possible presidential run, saying only, "Where I am right now is God's will." Cheryl Diaz Meyer for ESPN
"People love him," Pacquiao says of Duterte, "because actually he's not doing all of those abuses. In fact, more than 1,000 policemen have been dismissed from the service. Duterte told them, 'Do not abuse, because I will not tolerate you.' Do not abuse your power -- this is what he said. If you're performing your duty and putting your life in danger, why let them kill you? You kill them."
Pacquiao is obsessed with chess. He plays every day, and often through the night, in his home office. He sits quietly, in a big chair behind a big desk, scrutinizing the board as if it's speaking to him. His opponent -- often his personal lawyer, Tom Falgui, known in these circles only as Attorney Tom -- sits on the other side surrounded by men of varying employment who would prefer he lose to their boss. As Pacquiao surveys the traffic and talks about Duterte, his friend of 15 years and a man he once credited for organizing one of his early fights, I begin to wonder whether these answers are a byproduct of seeing life through the prism of pieces moving on a board. Even if Pacquiao did disagree on policy, Duterte's popularity and stranglehold on power turns even the mildest dissent into political suicide.
"Certainly, Pacquiao's not the first one to deny the killings are happening," says Carlos Conde, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes in the Philippines. "It's not even just denial -- it's a willingness to mislead people. I don't think he's that misinformed about what is happening. He's doing his bit to deflect criticism of the drug war. To deny this is happening is offensive to me as an advocate.
"Again, that tells you where he's headed when he becomes president. These issues are going to be around longer than Duterte."
Pacquiao's devotion to Duterte's authoritarian policies could seem to conflict with his image as a humble boxer and benevolent philanthropist, but there is almost nothing in his legislative record that prioritizes the poor or disenfranchised. His rhetoric on LGBTQ rights is shocking -- he once said homosexuals "are worse than animals" before issuing a qualified apology ("I'm just telling the truth of what the Bible says") -- and his reliance on his fundamentalist religious views as a guide to his political decisions is seen as problematic by the human rights community.
The words of a Filipino journalist who has documented the drug war in some of Manila's poorest neighborhoods bounce through my head. "With his background, Pacquiao could be the voice of the masses," he told me. "I live for the day when he stands up and says, 'Stop killing the poor.'"