Talk surrounding who might be Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III’s successor in 2016 is getting more and more interesting by the week! On Jimmy Kimmel Live, former US President Bill Clinton issued his view on the prospects of boxing champ Manny Pacquiao moving up the political ranks in the Philippines…
“He’s already in the Philippine Parliament, and I hope he goes right up on the ladder, and I think he’s a great guy and he’s a great role model for the country and he’s very strong and honest and so he’s thinking about the rest of his life,” said Clinton.
…a view which Kimmel, in turn, relayed to the Champ following Clinton’s appearance…
“President Clinton says he hopes you eventually will lead the Philippines that you one day will run the country, is that something that’s in your brain?” asked Kimmel.
To which Pacquiao replied, “Right now I’m focused on my position as a congressman”.
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Mid last year, Pacquiao had also hinted at plans to run for President of the Philippines…
When pressed on whether he had thought about shooting for the top job, the softly-spoken 34-year-old replied “Yes”.
Drawing parallels between his pugilism and politics careers, the former world champion in eight weight divisions said: “When I started boxing, of course I was planning, you know and thinking about getting to become a champion. So when I enter politics it’s the same thing.
“But, you know, it’s far away,” he said, adding: “It’s God’s will.”
Pacquiao will need a lot of money to mount a presidential campaign. This is going to be a tough challenge considering his on-going tax issues with the Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) which, itself, is under a lot of pressure to collect more taxes from the Filipino people. It all started with “reports” following the boxing match between Pacquiao and Brandon Rios in Macau that Pacquiao’s bank accounts were “frozen” over a long-pending Php2.2-billion rax case. The news first broke in a Manila Bulletin report of a warrant of garnishment (WG) issued by the BIR that effectively bars Pacquiao from accessing his bank deposits among other assets.
To follow through on his awesome achievements as a boxer, and then as a Philippine politician, Pacquiao has long been busy styling himself as the Ninong ng Bayan — the “godfather of the Filipino people”. But there is a looming risk to Pacquiao’s fortunes down the path if he is to go down this slipperly slope. When the awesome income he derives from his stellar boxing career dries up, where will he get the funds to sustain that image?
The only real next step for Pacquiao is the Philippine presidency. When one has been the world’s “pound-for-pound best fighter”, where else do you go but down? Fortunately for Pacquiao, there isn’t much in the way of real qualifications that stand between him and the Philippine presidency. Pacquiao is certainly popular. And in Philippine “democratic” politics where “the majority rules”, he’s got it made.
[Photo courtesy Yahoo! Sports.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
… and I thought Clinton is a smart guy. Wow, I lost all respect for him after such a crackbrained statement. WTF? Seriously?
By what measure is Bill Clinton ‘smart’? The fact that he is capable of splitting hairs to avoid taking responsibility for his hypocrisies and venal sins (read — marital infidelity and Whitewater crony capitalism) or his ability to cover up his stupidity and failure to deal with global threats like Islamic terror, specifically Al Qaeda and Usama bin Laden?
I hope Pacquiao will lose. The sooner, the better it will be for the country.
The guy has good intentions but as Karl Marx said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions“.
The only thing to fear, is fear itself…and political clowns
Bill Clinton is an alumnus of Georgetown University, where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa (the latter signifying that he finished in the top 10% of his Georgetown class[2]) and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is possibly the second most intelligent person on the American political scene, behind only his wife.
Mr. Clinton made at least one serious mistake when he tacitly endorsed GMA for her presidency because he thought she was also intelligent. I doubt that few people would doubt GMA’s intelligence, but few, if any, would now validate her integrity.
Manny Pacquiao is undoubtedly an intelligent man with integrity and the best wishes of The Philippines at heart, but at this point in time he is intellectually unqualified for the job or President of this country even when he attains legal age for the position.
And yet both Hillary and Bill Clinton have proven themselves to be morally bankrupt reprobates whose raging personal ambition and adherence to ideology trumps intelligent decision making.
“Manny Pacquiao is undoubtedly an intelligent man”
Did you sniff glue when you wrote that?
Please. NO!