ShareThisMANILA (PilipinasNews) — Filipino world boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, fresh from his 32nd birthday celebration, has another good news for him – he heads a group of champions nominated by the World Boxing Council (WBC) for the coveted Boxer of the Decade (2001-2010) award.
Pacquiao has won earlier the Boxer of the Decade and Boxer of the Year awards three times from the Boxing Writers Association of America. He also won awards from Ring Magazine
Pacquiao capped the decade with 19 big fights in the United States against the best fighters, winning 16 of them, 12 by knockouts, drawing twice and losing only once.
His performance earned for him a record eight world championship belts, the only boxer to do so, aside from reigning as the world’s pound-for-pound king.
This developed as Pacquiao agreed to pay more taxes to the Philippine government, pointing out that a change in his accountants may have caused possible errors in their income tax filings for him.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) reported that the eight-division world champion paid only P7.41 million in taxes last year, making him only the 113th top individual taxpayer in the Philippines.
In 2008, Pacquiao was the number one individual taxpayer when he paid P125 million in taxes to the BIR.
Pacquiao had also joined the BIR as campaigner to entice the taxpayers to pay and pay the right taxes to help the government.
But Pacquiao’s lawyer said his filing was only tentative. Once the right filing is made, Pacquiao may wind up in the top five individual taxpapers in the country, said Franklin Gacal, his lawyer and chief of staff in the House of Representatives.
Also in the WBC list of contenders to the Boxer of the Decade Award are Americans Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko, Mexican Erik Morales and Thai Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Pacquiao had defeated dela Hoya and Morales.
Pacquiao was also nominated for the Boxer of the Year award, alongside Argentinian Sergio Martinez and Canadian Jean Pascal.
The WBC, headed by Jose Sulaiman, said the winners of the awards will be announced by the end of the year.
In the decade, Pacquiao had conquerred boxing champions American Oscar De La Hoya, Briton Ricky Hatton, Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, and Mexican greats Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez.
This year, the Filipino hero and congressman had two impressive wins over much bigger men: Joshua Clottey of Ghana and Antonio Margarito of Mexico.