MANILA - FILIPINO boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao flew home to a hero's welcome on Monday after defending his world title and immediately began a political fight he said was aimed at helping the nation's poor masses.
Wearing a jacket and tie and accompanied by wife Jinkee, Pacquiao was met at Manila airport by a throng of press photographers and a group of politicians wanting to share the limelight with boxing's best pound-for-pound fighter.
'I am very happy that I have returned to the Philippines to be with my children. I thank everyone who supported and prayed for me in my last fight,' Pacquiao said.
Pacquiao defeated Ghana's Joshua Clottey in Texas last week to retain his World Boxing Organisation welterweight title.
Opposition senator Manuel Villar, a millionaire property developer who is one of the leading candidates for the presidency in the May 10 national elections, was among those who met Pacquiao at the airport. Pacquiao, 31, is running under Mr Villar's Nacionalista Party for a House of Representatives seat in the southern Philippine province of Sarangani.
'What we need now is a man who rose from poverty, who understands the call of the poor like myself,' Pacquiao said in an obvious reference to Mr Villar. Mr Villar, a son of a fish dealer who rose to become one of the country's most powerful men, has made poverty alleviation his central platform. -- AFP
