DUKES UP

Boxer Manny Pacquiao Throws Hat in the Ring for President of Philippines

The welterweight just lost a big fight but is already gearing up for another one.

Boxer Manny Pacquiao couldn’t regain the welterweight championship last month, but he's now going for a new title: president of the Philippines. Pacquiao, who has been a senator in his homeland since 2016, made it official on Sunday that he wants to succeed President Rodrigo Duterte, the deeply polarizing incumbent known mostly for encouraging a spectacular campaign of vigilante murder of suspected drug users and dealers. Duterte is term-limited out of office but has been nominated to run for vice president on a rival ticket.

Pacquiao is hugely popular in the Philippines because of his boxing career, but polling shows Duterte’s daughter, who has not even announced an intention to run, doing better with the public. LGBT groups are not fond of the PacMan, who in 2016 apologized for an anti-gay comment: “Do you see animals mating with the same sex? Animals are better because they can distinguish male from female.”