Pacquiao named head of ruling political party

MANILA: World boxing champion and administration Senator Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao has been installed as the new head of the country’s ruling political party, fuelling speculations that he would run for president in the 2022 elections.

Such speculations became even more intense when Pacquiao, in his speech as the new head of the Pdp-laban political party, warned members against involvement in corruption he described as the “cancer that has tormented our government for generations.”

Pacquiao aired the warning in a “hybrid” fellowship on Wednesday night with Pdp-laban members who also witnessed the installation of Speaker Lord Allan Cayetano of the House of Representatives as the party’s new executive vice president.

“I am really angry with corrupt officials and government workers. They are the ones who steal from the money of the people that should have been for programmes and projects that would help the poor,” Pacquiao said in Filipino.

He added: “Corrupt officials are a no-no to me. They steal even when we have a debt. It is saddening that millions of our countrymen are hungry, sick and lose hope while billions are stolen by some people in government.”

Observers noted that Pacquiao’s message was strangely similar to the one delivered by then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte in Mindanao when he won the presidency in the May 2016 elections with the commitment that he would wage war on illegal drugs, rampant criminality as well as widely-perceived corruption in the bureaucracy.

Duterte won as president as the standard bearer of the Pdp-laban, a minority party with few members in the Senate and House. But when Duterte became the president the party suddenly transformed into a ruling majority that entered into a coalition with other parties that now controls Congress.

But this is not unusual in the Philippine political seting. When a new president is elected, winnning candidates also gravitate towards him similar to what a senior politician described as “political buterflies fliting to the new powers-that-be.”