Pacquiao ready to accept people’s verdict today

MANILA, Philippines — After three months of a grueling campaign, presidential aspirant Sen. Manny Pacquiao said he is ready to accept the people’s verdict today.

Pacquiao emphasized that he has already experienced setbacks in his career, adding that he is ready for the decision of the majority of the people.

The global boxing icon-turned-billionaire politician has no regrets running for president, saying he has presented himself as an option for the voters, especially the poor.

“I made the impoverished understand our true intention,” he said in Filipino in an interview with reporters in General Santos City last Saturday night.

Pacquiao ended his campaign with a miting de avance in his hometown where he made a final pitch for the top post in the country.

He urged voters to consider him as their next president as he is aware of the problems facing the country, having grown up in poverty.

Pacquiao also warned voters of dire consequences if they will sell their votes to politicians.

“Will you sell your future within six years for just P1,000 or P500?” he asked.

The senator said politicians who engage in vote-buying would recoup their expenses once they are in power.

Dark horse

As 80 percent of the country’s 67 million Filipino voters flock to their precincts today, the team of Pacquiao – a so-called dark horse among all presidential wannabes – is still hoping that pollsters will be proved wrong.

No less than the eight-division world-boxing champion is optimistic with the turnout in every rally they had held across the country, where multitudes from the classes D and E expressed their preference for the guy with a classic rags-to-riches story.

“My voters are mostly from the D and E class,” the Promdi standard-bearer kept telling journalists, in effect refuting all pollsters in pre-election surveys who unanimously rate former senator Bongbong Marcos as the frontrunner, and where he ranked only third.

A vast majority of the country’s 110-million population comprise the D and E classes, with barely five or 10 percent of them belonging to the elite and the upper middle-class, which also comprise 85 percent of the government’s tax base – the fixed income earners.

At the very least, Pacquiao estimated that he could muster on the average 10 million votes easily based on the list he gave to Filipinos whom he promised with housing program, even if he fails to make it to Malacañang this June 30, since he has been doing this decades back.

As per regular Commission on Elections (Comelec) statistics, voter turnout every presidential election held every six years always yields 80 percent of the total number of voters, which means Filipinos always want to have a say on whom they want their next president to be.

“This is the fight of Manny Pacquiao, and I have always repeated this that this will be a revolution where the poor will finally have a voice in our government, so that they will be given due importance,” the senator told reporters at a briefing in Borongan, Eastern Samar.

“It is now time for the poor to be victorious. This is a revolution of each Filipino for them to better their lives. Let us put an end to abuses. Because it is true that in our country, only those who are in position become rich,” he added. – Delon Porcalla, Rainier Allan Ronda