Do we like Manny Pacquiao?
Our score: 3 out of 10. A genuine rise from poverty and real public service, set against his own anti-LGBTQ+ words and his 2017 Senate argument against a gender-identity anti-discrimination bill.
Pacquiao's origin story is the real thing. He says he came from poverty, with nights “sleeping on cardboard on the street”. He went on to win world titles in eight weight divisions, which Reuters says no other boxer has done. He retired in 2021 and came back in July 2025.
The politics came with the fame. He sat in the Senate, lost a 2022 presidential run, then lost a 2025 bid to return to the Senate on an administration-backed ticket. The Marcos Cabinet job is a comeback of sorts, and he has framed it as service rather than a campaign.
Now the harm check. In February 2016 he was asked about same-sex marriage and said that if same-sex relationships existed “then people are worse than animals”. He then posted an apology on Facebook for hurting people by comparing homosexuals to animals. That apology counts, but it did not settle where he stands on LGBTQ+ people's rights.
On the good-person side, there are two legal stories. A California jury sided with Paradigm Sports Management in May 2023 and ordered him to pay US$5.1 million. Paradigm claimed he acted in bad faith by not disclosing an earlier promotional agreement, and he said he would seek other legal remedies. In 2022 the Court of Tax Appeals dismissed a tax bill of more than US$37 million from the tax office, finding it void for lack of due process and sufficient factual basis.
The latest news is mostly clean. In September he turned down a vice-presidency in the National Chess Federation of the Philippines, citing disagreement with its direction. The federation did not sanction his chess championships, although he says he paid the sanctioning fee. Of the poverty job he said “This is not politics. This is true public service”. He has yet to publish a detailed strategy for the role.
The good stuff is real, though thinner on paper than you'd expect for such a famous man. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2025. A month later, at 46, he fought Mario Barrios to a majority draw for the WBC welterweight title. His foundation's charity work turns up in coverage, but I couldn't tie it to a page I could date, so it isn't counted. So he's a decent bloke who has worked to lift people up, and who has also demeaned some of the people reading this.