{"id":74306,"date":"2016-04-16T01:32:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T05:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=74306"},"modified":"2016-04-16T01:32:53","modified_gmt":"2016-04-16T05:32:53","slug":"pacquiao-receives-rousing-heros-welcome-general-santos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/04\/16\/pacquiao-receives-rousing-heros-welcome-general-santos\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacquiao receives rousing hero\u2019s welcome in General Santos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Manny<\/a>
Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, who is seeking a Senate seat under the UNA slate in the May 9 elections, earlier announced that he will officially retire from boxing after the Bradley fight.
(Photo from Pacquiao’s official Twitter account<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GENERAL SANTOS CITY \u2013 World boxing icon and Saragani Rep. Emmanuel \u201cManny\u201d Pacquiao received a rousing hero\u2019s welcome here on Friday morning as he returned home after his convincing win over American brawler Timothy Bradley in Las Vegas last Sunday.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao arrived at the city airport here at around 9 a.m. aboard a Philippine Airlines flight from Manila, amid cheers from hundreds of well-wishers that crowded the arrival area.<\/p>\n

He was accompanied by his family, mother Dionisia and his siblings, several close friends, political allies and members of his boxing team.<\/p>\n

A contingent of officials from this city and Sarangani Province, relatives, close friends and around 100 beneficiaries of his scholarship program met the \u201cfighting congressman\u201d at the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy to be back home. Thank you for all your prayers and support,\u201d a beaming Pacquiao, who was wearing a red checkered polo, said upon arrival.<\/p>\n

He was immediately whisked to a waiting float for a motorcade to the city\u2019s downtown area, wherein thousands of cheering residents showed up by the roadside.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao and his entourage then proceeded to his hotel here before joining the welcome program at the SM Mall led by City Mayor Ronnel Rivera and Sarangani Governor Steve Solon.<\/p>\n

The eight-division world boxing champion, who decked Bradley twice before eking out a unanimous decision, grew up in Barangay Labangal here and is considered a local hero.<\/p>\n

He received the World Boxing Organization international welterweight belt as \u201cspecial recognition\u201d for his win over Bradley, who remains its welterweight titleholder.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao, who is seeking a Senate seat under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) slate in the May 9 elections, earlier announced that he will officially retire from boxing after the Bradley fight.<\/p>\n

In an interview with reporters, Pacquiao said that he has already made up his mind and has no plans of backing down from his decision to finally retire from boxing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already declared (to retire). Now I want to enjoy my retirement and spend more time with family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao said he will also focus on his campaign for the Senate and help other candidates under his own local political party, People\u2019s Champ Movement (PCM).<\/p>\n

The PCM had forged an alliance with the UNA of presidential candidate and current Vice President Jejomar Binay for the May polls.<\/p>\n

The PCM-UNA coalition will hold a grand rally here on Saturday with the Vice President and its senatorial slate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENERAL SANTOS CITY \u2013 World boxing icon and Saragani Rep. Emmanuel \u201cManny\u201d Pacquiao received a rousing hero\u2019s welcome here on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":74309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95,44],"tags":[4241,2031],"class_list":["post-74306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","category-sports","tag-general-santos","tag-pacquiao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}