Pacquiao’s Toughest Fight Has Been Out of the Ring

The boxing star Manny Pacquiao took a break from training camp in the Philippines last weekend to distribute food and supplies to hundreds of people who have been affected by the country’s worst flooding in 40 years.

His promoter, Bob Arum, said that the back-to-back storms, which have caused dozens of landslides and killed nearly 500 people, for the most part did not affect the boxer considered the pound-for-pound king as he trained in Baguio for his fight next month against Miguel Cotto.

“I talked to them last night, and the typhoon is still hanging around, so he couldn’t run outside,” Arum said Friday. “But he’s getting good sparring in.”

That is, when Pacquiao is not making a quick trip down from the mountains to the capital, Manila, where last Sunday he spent several hours helping with flood relief.

The storms began Sept. 26, and after Typhoon Parma struck last Saturday, rescuers waded through mud near Baguio and retrieved more than 150 bodies. Dozens of other people were still missing, and more than 100 people were pulled out alive. Television footage showed bodies arriving in black bags in a hall in Baguio, where relatives wept after recognizing loved ones.

Established by Americans more than 100 years ago, Baguio is in the heart of the Cordillera region, about 125 miles from Manila. Officials said close to 100 landslides had occurred near the city, and the nonstop rain is threatening more homes and businesses.

Arum was visiting the training camp during the storms last week.

The Top Rank publicist Lee Samuels said: “I was concerned; the whole staff was concerned. I got a message from Bob saying, ‘I’m with Manny, we’re O.K., we’re at a palatial estate in the mountains.’ But it was very scary.”

Pacquiao is idolized in the Philippines, his following so fanatical that hundreds of people tail him during his morning runs. His popularity bridges the divide between rich and poor, and government officials jokingly claim that crime drops whenever he fights because everybody is in front of a TV.

Many expect him to run for president, and he has even borrowed a line from the Spiderman movies that “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Last Saturday, he headed down from his mountain training camp in driving rain so that he could wake up Sunday and assist those who have lost everything.

“I escaped on Saturday morning, from Baguio to Manila, because that storm didn’t hit Manila,” Arum said. “And Manny, after he worked out, about 4 in the afternoon, in the middle of the rain, was driven down to Manila and on Sunday distributed food. It’s just incredible.”

Arum said that Pacquiao and the trainer Freddie Roach would leave for Los Angeles on Oct. 24 so that the fighter could adjust to the time difference. Pacquiao will have logged about 150 rounds of sparring against Urbano Antillon, José Luis Castillo and Shawn Porter by the time he arrives in Las Vegas for the fight Nov. 14.

Cotto will continue to train in Tampa, Fla., until two weeks before the fight, which has a catch weight of 145 pounds and will be for Cotto’s World Boxing Organization welterweight title.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/sports/11pacquaio.html?_r=1