Distractions Continue to Hound Manny Pacquiao as He Mixes Boxing with Politics

WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquaio is taking two days off from his heightened training in Baguio City to grace some social functions in Metro Manila in line with his work as congressman representing the province of Sarangani in southern Philippines.

Pacquiao left coach Freddie Roach in Baguio City Saturday and will spend the night with his family in Metro Manila.

On Sunday morning, he will join some 120,000 runners in the “10.10.10 Run for the Pasig River,” a government/private sector project designed to raise people's consciousness on its efforts to clean up the river after years of neglect by previous governments.

After the Pasig run, Pacquiao will do some roadworks inside the Rizal Memorial Stadium where he also did some running exercises as part of his training when he fought Miguel Cotto last year.

Later in the afternoon, Pacquiao will join fellow congressmen from Visayas and Mindanao to a meeting with Philippine president Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino apparently to persuade the chief executive to allocate more money to his constituency and to Visayas and Mindanao after it was reported that the 2011 national budget was tilted in favor of Luzon.

It may be recalled during the initial phase of his training that Pacquiao was shuttling between his office in congress and the Elorde Gym, in an apparent move to give equal time to his congressional duties and his training for the Margarito fight.

Again last week, Pacquiao traveled to Manila to attend a social function in Camp Aguinaldo were he is a reserved officer. He also spent some time with his daughter who was celebrating her fourth birthday in San Pedro City.

Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach was left behind in Baguio City along with the Filipino boxer's sparring partners, Glen Tapia and Michael Medina, who were joined by Amir Khan a few days ago.

With the series of interruptions on Pacquiao's training schedules, it is interesting to note that Roach is not so much bothered this time compared to his tight grip on Pacquiao's training during his previous fights.

Some of Pacquiao's local fans are concerned about the series of training disruptions that are happening at the height of his training in Baguio City.

A certain zeus wrote this comment in the article source:

"Roach must have been very disappointed, he has been against with too many distractions during training, but look what's happening now. He just can't do a thing and power to stop it. They did not train like this before... travels, missing morning runs, day-off on a scheduled sparring day etc etc etc. What is Pacquiao thinking?"

"Pacman thinks he can recover from these 'no-training-days' when the team trains in Wild Card Gym, USA. Right now, he is dividing himself too much for training as a boxer and doing things as a public official, he added."

Some boxing critics say Roach is confident the Filipino boxer will have an easy victory over Antonio Margarito on November 13. And that is the reason why he often allows Pacquiao to skip training on special occasions.

Still others say Freddie Roach is just helpless at this time because of Pacquiao's social and political commitments as a government official.