After election, fight loses its political agenda

Bob Arum had it in his grasp, so close he could taste it. He had a shot at pulling off one of the world’s greatest boxing promotions.

Instead, Arum was dealt a cruel defeat at the hands of dishonest and unsavory people. No, not Showtime or HBO. The people who run Philippine politics.

Tonight, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, three-division world champion Marco Antonio Barrera of Mexico will fight three-division world champion Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines. They will box at 130 pounds, which is super-featherweight.

No title is at stake, and that seems to matter little these days. This way, Arum’s Top Rank and Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy, the joint promoters, don’t have to pay sanction fees to some guy in Thailand who has a website and gets his expenses paid to the fight. They’ll charge $49.95 for the pay-per-view and expect the public to get a good show.

But oh, how Arum laments the loss of a potential great show.

The 28-year-old Pacquiao ran for election to the Philippine Congress on May 14 and lost. The Philippine system is similar to the United States, with a Senate and a House of Representatives, meaning Pacquiao would have taken on a role of high governmental stature. Some in his country hoped this would lead to the Senate, where he could truly become influential.

Arum had all the big billboards in his sights. Barrera versus the honorable Pacquiao. Revenge vs. Respect. A Vote or a Veto? A Bill of Rights or Lefts?

“I was already arranging for a luncheon with our Nevada Senator,” Harry Reid, Arum says. “We were going to take Manny to Washington.”

But instead, according to the Pacquiao camp, the election was rigged and Pacquiao was beaten for the seat in the second district of South Cotabato, which includes his hometown of General Santos City, by Darlene Antonino-Custodio of the politically powerful Antonino family. By one estimate, it marked just the 52,344th Philippine political election that was considered to be less than honest.

Pacquiao’s chief of staff, Jayke Joson, says, “In politics in the Philippines, when you lose, you are not actually losing. You are just cheated.”

Pacquiao, apparently forgetting the concept of Florida hanging chads, says, “Elections, they are fair here. In the Philippines, it is different. You are cheated.”

And Arum, who traveled to the Philippines the week before the elections and witnessed it all, says, “It would have made old Mayor Daley in Chicago proud.”

Arum went to the Philippines at Pacquiao’s request.

“I was practicing my speeches on the plane,” Arum says. “Then I got there and got bad news and good news. The bad news was that, as a foreigner, I could not actively campaign. The good news was that, as a foreigner, I could not contribute to the campaign.”

Pacquiao says he decided to take on this rather strange side job when he saw a way to help people in his General Santos City. When he is home, there are days when 2,000 people line up for money and gifts. Reporter Nick Giongco of the Manila Bulletin, who covers Pacquiao as a year-round assignment, says he has never seen anybody get turned away.

“There are usually plastic bags,” he says, “and they contain rice and sardines and anywhere from 100-200 pesos (about $2-$4). People just move through the line.”

Pacquiao’s chief of staff, Joson, says, “Manny never says no to anybody. We do that for him.”

Had Pacquiao won, he reportedly would have been able to distribute about $1.5 million to the people in his district, money that is unlikely to get to them now, since Antonino-Custodio is from the opposition party of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who hands out those funds.

For all but Arum, there seems to be silver lining in Pacquiao’s defeat. The fighter himself says his loss does not mean he is finished with politics.

“I have a plan,” he says, nodding when it is noted that the next major election in the Philippines is 2010.

Joson says Pacquiao lost no ground in popularity with the political loss.

“Something like 99% of the people don’t want him in politics right now,” he says, “because he has so much better an image as a boxer than as a politician. If he wins the election, his image is reduced.”

The reporter, Giongco, adds, “The joke in my country was that if you asked 10 people if Manny should enter politics, 11 would say no.”

Arum, for his part, says his quick trip to the Philippines was eye-opening and eventful. He says he went to nine rallies in about 36 hours, with attendance ranging from 5,000 to 25,000 and made sure to have armed guards with him. Pacquiao’s injection of $1.5 million into the local economy would have made a great impact because “the best breakfast buffet in town was at the local hotel and it cost about 30 cents,” Arum says.

Before Arum left, he saw a lineup of people in Pacquiao’s backyard, offering to deliver large blocks of votes.

“One guy was guaranteeing 32,000,” Arum says. Also key, according to Arum, was that the people Pacquiao paid to watch the polls didn’t, and the opponent’s did, raising, once again, the age-old political question: Who watches the poll-watchers?

So it will be plain-old Manny Pacquiao boxing and plain-old Bob Arum promoting tonight . There are about 12,000 seats at Mandalay Bay Events Center. Expect a quorum.

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Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

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THE FIGHT

Manny Pacquiao vs.

Marco Antonio Barrera

at Las Vegas, card begins at 6 p.m. Super-featherweights, 12 rounds, HBO pay-per-view.