- Speaker Sonny Belmonte says Manny Pacquiao should postpone his fight against Timothy Bradley
- Otherwise, the Speaker says, Pacquiao should back out of the Senate race
- Pacquiao, running for Senate, is set to fight Bradley exactly a month before the national polls
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said that Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao should back out of his bid for the Senate if he insists on pushing through with his boxing match in Las Vegas this April.
Pacquiao is scheduled to face American boxer Timothy Bradley on April 9; exactly one month before the national polls.
Legal experts have earlier pointed out the upcoming bout could be constituted as a violation of election campaign rules as the date falls within the official campaign period and the month-long duration of overseas absentee voting.
In response, the leader of the House of Representatives advised the boxing champ-turned-lawmaker to postpone his fight against Bradley.
“It’s better if he postpones it. He can always fight after the elections. It doesn’t really matter if he [will be] postponing [the fight for] a few months and yet it makes a big difference, giving people a sense of fairness, that he has been fair to his opponents,” Belmonte told GMA News.
Political observers, however, have noted that Pacquiao’s hesitation to postpone the fight might also be to avoid a possible breach of contract.
To this, Belmonte said that the Congressman must back out of the Senate race altogether.
“Eh di umatras na lang siya sa pagse-senador. Kung talagang gusto niyang maging senador, dapat inisip-isip niyang mabuti na hindi ka dapat pumirma ng ganoong klaseng kontrata noong araw. [So he should back out of becoming senator. If he really wanted to be a senator, he should have thought really well that he shouldn’t have signed such a contract earlier],” the Speaker said.
Meanwhile, the camp of Pacquiao, who is running under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), insists that the boxing match is “not political” and as such, deserves coverage as a “news event.”
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