Pacquiao vows to finish the race, unfazed by low ratings

Sen. Manny Pacquiao. (File photo by ALBERT CALVELO / Senate PRIB)

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Manny Pacquiao remains unperturbed by his poor rating in recent presidential polls, claiming that survey leaders historically never won in elections.

Pacquiao vowed to pull a surprise in the run-up to the elections.

“I am not bothered by the survey,” the presidential candidate said in Filipino in a virtual press conference on Monday, referring to the latest Pulse Asia survey, which showed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ son and namesake taking the lead.

“I am fighting to fight for the country’s future, especially for the poor. I and my supporters will not be disheartened. We will continue to knock on every door, community, town, and province to share our plans in alleviating our country from poverty,” he said.

Pacquiao maintained that his candidacy has solid ground support.

“We remain very optimistic because we are seeing a snowballing of support in the Visayas and in Mindanao,” he said, adding, “We expect to solidify all Visayans being the only Visayan candidate among the presidentiables.”

He vowed to continue programs for the Visayas and Mindanao initiated by President Duterte.

Pacquiao downplayed pre-election surveys, saying that they only had a handful of respondents and speculated that surveyors had not even bothered to ask the preference of the D and E classes.

“The real survey is election day. Only 1,200 persons were asked in the survey. There are 46 to 48 million in D (class), and 9 to 10 million E (class). There’s a difference. Maybe the surveyors only asked the A, B, C classes and did not survey the D and E classes,” he said.

The recent Pulse Asia survey had 2,400 respondents.

Amid speculations that he was quitting the presidential race, Pacquiao maintained he was not one to back out from a fight.

Pacquiao, drawing from his experience as a boxing champ, said, “I am a fighter and there’s no backing out here.”

“It’s not in my vocabulary, especially if it’s for the country. If I never backed out [from any fight] for myself, [more so in the fight] for the country,” he stressed.

“There are many who are poor in the country and depend on Manny Pacquiao. This fight of Manny Pacquiao, this is not for myself. This is for every Filipino,” he said.

Pacquiao assured the public that there were financial backers to his campaign who were helping him with no strings attached.

“So our dream for real change would not be compromised,” he explained.

The senator pointed out that he was willing to accept support from big spenders as long as the help offered was unconditional.

Pacquiao also pointed out that people will eventually realize who among the presidential bets are avoiding laying down their platforms and plans for the country.

“If I were a voter, I would not vote for someone whose platform, plans I know nothing of,” he said.

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