GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines -- Mid-morning has seen a celebrity arrive at the East Asia Royale Hotel near Manny Pacquiao's compound and home base. Boxing promoter Bob Arum, dressed in a tropical weight gray T-shirt and slacks, has come straight here from his home in Las Vegas.
His mission today: to accompany Pacquiao and his campaign convoy to a rally two hours away in Sarangani province.
"You've got to understand -- I'm not here to talk about boxing. I'm not here as a boxing promoter, but as a wanna-be James Carville," says Arum, who refuses to speculate whether the highly anticipated mega-bout between his client, Pacquiao, and Floyd Mayweather will ever happen, Olympic-style drug testing or not.
This is Arum's ninth trip to the Philippines to attend to Pacquiao's needs. They discuss his career, they meet for training camps.
On this trip, Arum says he is only here to support Pacquiao's run for Congress in Sarangani.
"I haven't talked to Manny about boxing since I congratulated him on the Clottey fight," Arum said of Pacquiao's most recent victory over Ghanian fighter Joshua Clottey at Cowboys Stadium in March.
So there will be no talk about Mayweather.
As Arum drinks a cup of coffee, two star-struck teenage boys beg for a photo. Arum gets up, puts his arm around the boys and smiles widely for the father's camera.
"That'll be on Facebook soon enough," one Arum employee calls out, and the restaurant erupts in laughter.
As Pacquiao's promoter, Arum is easily recognizable to Filipino sports fans. "But if [trainer] Freddie Roach walked in here," Arum says, "nobody would even look at me."
Why would Arum travel thousands of miles from his Las Vegas comfort zone to spend several days in the steamy southern reaches of Mindanao island? He says he believes in what Pacquiao wants to do for his people -- to help lift them from their poverty as a public servant, rather than a boxing hero.
Pacquiao's failed 2007 run for the House of Representatives "was totally amateur," Arum says. "This one is more professionally run."
According to Arum, local polls and anecdotal samplings of the people suggest Pacquiao, 31, is leading his 61-year-old opponent from an entrenched political clan, Roy Chiangbian, by a 60-40 margin.
Pacquiao's impassioned speeches during recent political rallies are much improved, Arum says. "No matter how much from the heart his message is, he's got to be more organized," the promoter says.
Arum concedes that politics in the Philippines "are corrupt -- the people who win are from powerful political families.
"They have no interest in doing anything other than lining their pockets," Arum says. "Manny has the will and the desire to really inspire change. Food, water, schools -- he wants to build a hospital. There isn't even a hospital in Sarangani."
The promoter has a vested interest in seeing his most famous cash cow remain in the boxing ring. But Arum says he is an absolute believer in Pacquiao's mission to improve the lives of impoverished Filipinos who experience the hardscrabble life that defined Pacman's childhood here.
"When you grow up in the poverty that Manny did -- poverty that you and I can't even comprehend -- when you get away from it, you either want to stay away and, like Mayweather, live through your cars and your homes," Arum says. "Or you can have this desire to lift up the people, which Manny apparently has."
Pacquiao is such a devout Catholic, he conducts a full Mass before and after each boxing match. He wears rosary beads and prays constantly.
"He's a very spiritual person. He credits his success to God. He really does," Arum says. "And I think he has a calling from God to improve the lives of his people."
And what if Pacquiao should win the May 10 election, and announce to Arum and the sporting world that he is stepping away from boxing?
"Then I'd throw a retirement party for him," Arum says. "I don't care if people don't believe that. He's a very special person and I'm not going to interfere with that.
"I'm here to help him. Whichever direction he goes, my job is to be supportive. That's why I'm over here, to see what little I can do to help him get elected."
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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