Laying down with dogs, Manny Pacquiao sure to get fleas

Perhaps I've gone off on a Pinoy political jag, I don't know.

Maybe I need something calming, like some vino and a New Haven or Rhode Island style clam pizza.

But, the more I ruminate on Manny Pacquiao's political thrusts, the more I see a good man, an honest man and a helper of the poor disenfranhised (from whence he came in GenSan) who is laying down with infested dogs and can only come away with fleas.

The old saw about power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely comes to mind when I chanced up Tuesday's New York Times and a stroy reported by Carlos H. Conde.

In it, Conde discussed Filipino president Gloria Macapagal Aorroyo as being "deeply unpopular" and reviewed her plans to now run for a seat in Congress next year.

I shoud have stopped reading there because what followed was a landslide of bad news about Pacquiao's friend:

"While she has survived several impeachment efforts, her administration has been embroiled in numerous scandals involving corruption and accused of involvement in the extrajudicial killing and abduction of hudnreds of activists. Her closest political allies in the southern Philippines were implicated last week in the massacre of 57 people, most of them journalists, in the country's worst case of election-related violence..."

I stopped there to catch my breath.

Hey, Manny, you want to meet and remeet a better class of people?

Stick to boxing because even our most odious boxing types, they don't roll like that.

They usually confine themselves to theft and other nonviolent treachery.

I repeat myself but maybe Pacman's ego and his genuine intererst in aiding the less fortunate has got the best of him.

His forays into Pinoy politics can only mix him up with the worst of them.