Manila - Filipino boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao flew home to a hero's welcome Monday after defending his world title and immediately began a political fight he said was aimed at helping the nation's poor masses.
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- Wearing a jacket and tie and accompanied by wife Jinkee, Pacquiao was met at Manila airport by a throng of press photographers and a group of politicians wanting to share the limelight with boxing's best pound-for-pound fighter.
- "I am very happy that I have returned to the Philippines to be with my children. I thank everyone who supported and prayed for me in my last fight," Pacquiao said.
- Pacquiao defeated Ghana's Joshua Clottey in Texas last week to retain his World Boxing Organization welterweight title.
- Opposition senator Manuel Villar, a millionaire property developer who is one of the leading candidates for the presidency in the May 10 national elections, was among those who met Pacquiao at the airport.
- Pacquiao, 31, is running under Villar's Nacionalista Party for a House of Representatives seat in the southern Philippine province of Sarangani.
- "What we need now is a man who rose from poverty, who understands the call of the poor like myself," Pacquiao said in an obvious reference to Villar.
- Villar, a son of a fish dealer who rose to become one of the country's most powerful men, has made poverty alleviation his central platform.
- Pacquiao, who similarly lifted himself out of deep poverty to become one of the world's richest sportsmen, has said helping the poor is also his main motivation in running for Congress.
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