Pacquiao arrives today, to pay courtesy call on Aquino

MANILA, Philippines - Manny Pacquiao comes home from Los Angeles today almost a week after his 12-round destruction of Mexico’s Antonio Margarito and his recognition as the only boxer in history ever to win eight world titles in as many divisions.

There will be no motorcade for Pacquiao, who is scheduled to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at around 5:30 a.m. with his wife Jinkee, other relatives and close friends. Expected to lead the welcomers are the Pacquiao kids.

From there, Pacquiao will be brought to the New World Hotel in Makati so he can have breakfast and a very brief rest.

Pacquiao will attend the traditional thanksgiving Mass at the Quiapo Church at 8:30 a.m. and before noon he should be in Malacañang to meet President Aquino. Pacquiao’s meeting with the President will not be open to media.

A victory party has been set at the Mall of Asia at 5 p.m.

Pacquiao’s business manager Eric Pineda said the boxer will be the special guest in GMA 7’s noontime show tomorrow.

The big day comes on Monday when Pacquiao, the fighting congressman from Sarangani, reports for work at the Batasan complex. Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. will lead lawmakers in a grand welcome for their esteemed colleague.

Pacquiao pummeled Margarito for 12 brutal rounds last Sunday at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and won the vacant WBC super-welterweight championship, his eighth world title in eight different weight classes.

He has now been hailed as “the greatest boxer of all time.”

Pacquiao’s adviser, Mike Koncz. spoke to The STAR before the world’s pound-for-pound champion and his small entourage boarded the Philippine Airlines plane that will take them to Manila via Guam.

“He feels more relaxed now,” said Koncz when asked how Pacquiao was doing.

Pacquiao won the bout unanimously, but he also paid the price for facing someone as big, as tall, as heavy, as strong as Margarito, who hurt the Filipino champion with two solid left hooks to the right side of the body in the sixth round.

Pacquiao appeared to be shaken by those body blows, and his chief trainer, Freddie Roach, who was right in front of the action, said he thought his fighter would go down. But Pacquiao managed to get out of the situation in no time at all.

Two days after the fight, Pacquiao was brought to a hospital in Los Angeles for precautionary check up. He took some X-Rays and other tests and was declared safe and fit by the attending physicians.

Margarito took a severe beating from the smaller Filipino, his right eye shut and bloody. He underwent operation in Texas last Tuesday, and doctors said it was a very successful procedure.

“He’s feeling good. Now he looks like he hadn’t been through a fight,” said Koncz.

On his final day in LA prior to his flight back home, Pacquiao honored some business commitments, like a commercial shoot for some product endorsement.

He staged a concert in Lake Tahoe last Tuesday, and another one at the Hidden Brook Golf and Country Club in Vallejo, California.

There have been calls for Pacquiao’s retirement, including that from his mother, Mommy Dionisia, who at the height of last week’s boxing match was taken to the hospital due to a panic attack.

Bill Dwyre, the legendary sports columnist of the Los Angeles Times, is also among those who think Pacquiao should hang up his gloves.

“I’d like to see him win this fight and quit,” said Dwyre prior to the match. “Quit while he’s ahead, quit while he’s on top.”

But Pacquiao said hanging up his gloves is not in his agenda right now.

“I am still strong. I will continue fighting,” he said.

That was music to the ears of most Pacquiao fans, and to his promoter Bob Arum’s.

“Manny definitely said he will fight again. It’s not if he will fight again but when. I will discuss with him the schedule he wants to follow,” said the chief of Top Rank Promotions, who must have run out of his own boxers to throw at Pacquiao.

Pacquiao had defeated his fellow Top Rank boxers in his last three fights, starting with Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey and Margarito.

“I’ve run out of my own guys. He beat all my guys,” said Arum, now looking at Floyd Mayweather Jr., Shane Mosley or Juan Manuel Marquez as Pacquiao’s next opponent, all of them with ties to Golden Boy Promotions.

Meantime, Malacañang said yesterday they still have to see what more awards could be bestowed on Pacquiao. – With Aurea Calica