SPREADING GOD’S WORDS Boxing icon Manny Pacquiao calls on policemen to read the bible and experience a new life. The Sarangani legislator was guest speaker at the 20th anniversary of the Police Community Relations Group (PCRG) Monday where he recounted the first time he read the bible. Video by Matikas Santos
MANILA, Philippines – Policemen should read the bible and “restore their relationship with God,” boxing icon Manny Pacquiao urged Monday.
It was no sermon and Pacquiao did not directly asked officers to overcome their spiritual shortcomings, but he used himself as an example that change is possible if one accepts God.
The legislator-cum-boxing hero who was guest speaker at the 20th anniversary of the Police Community Relations Group (PCRG) admitted that once he was a man of many vices.
Pacquiao recalled then he would promise his wife Jinky that he would stop drinking, gambling and womanizing only to break it after a few days.
After going through bouts of happiness and sadness, which he blamed on the “trickery of the devil,” Pacquiao said he found himself reading the bible one day.
“While we read the bible, we are talking to God,” he said. “That is the only way we communicate with God because the words there are the words of God.”
Since then, Pacquiao experienced a newfound passion for reading the good book and adopted socially conservative views.
World boxing champion and Sarangani Rep Manny Pacquiao encouraged the police force to read the bible and restore their relationship with God.
Whenever he hears people saying that they don’t read the bible because they don’t have one, Pacquiao said “a person who is hungry will look for food, and not wait to be given food.”
He and the Bible Society donated bibles to policemen to encourage them to read it.
PNP Chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome said that the PNP is not a perfect organization and there are some policemen who had gone off the right path.
“We are improving their discipline through activities like bible study values formation, and other religious activities,” Bartolome said in an ambush interview after the event.