Pacquiao’s camp confident he’ll win voters, takes a potshot at Marcos for skipping forums

FILE Sen. Manny Pacquiao

MANILA, Philippines — The camp of presidential candidate Manny Pacquiao is confident that the senator would win over potential voters because of his willingness to attend any debates or fora, unlike other certain candidates.

Pacquiao’s campaign manager Buddy Zamora said the boxer turned politician is prepared to face any kind of debate or interview and wants to “show himself to the public” to defend his ideas.

“We intend to prove that Senator Pacquiao is a credible candidate and he will win over potential voters because he’s willing to face any debate, any TV interview, any kind of forum,” Zamora said in an interview over ABS CBN News Channel.

“He actually wants to go live against his opponents. In his words, he wants to see eye to eye when discussing issues. Senator Pacquiao is prepared to face any kind of debate or interview, we’re not one to choose. We want to join all,” he added.

On the other hand, Zamora pointed out that presidential hopeful Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.‘s decision not to show up in certain presidential interviews was so as not to risk his high ratings in surveys by committing mistakes.

Recently, Marcos had chosen to attend a cooking show hosted by Korina Sanchez for her magazine program instead of joining the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas’ Panata sa Bayan presidential forum, together with five other candidates for the top elective post.

“I think he goes to the tenet that less talk is less mistake. To his mind, it would be an advantage to him to lessen public exposure since his ratings is so high already. So I believe he wouldn’t want to risk his number 1 position,” he said.

Marcos has been topping presidential surveys so far while Pacquiao trails in the third or fourth place.

In the Pulse Asia survey in December last year, Pacquiao placed fourth in the respondents’ preferred presidential hopefuls, just after Manila City mayor Isko Moreno.

Despite this, Zamora said he is “comfortable” where Pacquiao is in the ratings.

“I am quite comfortable where we are. Being number one at this time is a precarious position because there’s no place to go but down. In our case, we are somewhere around third or fourth, there’s no way to go but up,” he said.

Zamora said Pacquiao’s camp will only be just starting its media campaign as they had not yet spent as much as other candidates in terms of media and TV ads.

“We will be starting now as the campaign period sets in. We do the groundwork first before the media campaign,” he said.

Pacquiao kicked off his presidential campaign on Tuesday in his hometown General Santos City, where he vowed he will not be a traditional politician or “trapo.”

EDV