Manny Pacquiao promises to pack a punch

Manila: Filipino boxing hero Manny Pacquiao is confident he can beat American arch-rival Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas on Saturday with the power of God, after abandoning a life he said was packed with sin condemning him to hell. Pacquiao is in top form both in mind and spirit after he traded his boozing, gambling and womanising ways for a devout life of prayer, his spiritual adviser, Jeric Soriano, said in a recent Manila interview.

 

“Manny is a God-fearing man. Inside his heart of hearts he really loved God. Except the world got to him,” Soriano said of Pacquiao’s party-boy lifestyle before he became born-again in 2012. Pacquiao now dreams of becoming a pastor and is building a 6,000-square metre (1.5-acre) “worship house” in his southern Philippine hometown of General Santos as a monument to his spiritual rebirth, Soriano said.

 

In 2012, Pacquiao acknowledged he had succumbed to many of the temptations on offer to ultra-wealthy sportsmen, after the media for many years dined out on rumours of infidelity, drinking and gambling.“I do realise I was a weak person before. If I had died the other year, I believe my soul would have ended in hell. I had faith, but I was doing things which were against the will of God,” Pacquiao told reporters then.