Eight-time world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao has apologized after sparking outrage in the Philippines by saying gay people are “worse than animals.”<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old, who is running for a seat in the country’s senate, made the remarks on a television program broadcast by Filipino station TV5.<\/p>\n
Campaigning to secure one of 12 national seats he said: “It’s common sense. Will you see any animals where male is to male and female is to female?<\/p>\n
“The animals are better. They know how to distinguish male from female. If we approve [of] male on male, female on female, then man is worse than animals.”<\/p>\n
He first clarified his comments on his Instragram page, before later posting a video message on his Twitter account.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry for everyone who got hurt due to my comparison of gay people (homosexuals) to animals,” he said. “It was my mistake. Please forgive me for those who I’ve hurt.<\/p>\n
“But this does not change my position against same sex marriage. That’s what I believe. My only mistake is comparing gay people to animals.”<\/p>\n
The first fighter to win world titles at eight different weight divisions, Pacquiao is set to retire after his bout with Timothy Bradley in April.<\/p>\n
The Filipino boxer’s “super fight” in Las Vegas with Floyd Mayweather last year was the most lucrative in boxing history. Pacquiao lost a unanimous points decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eight-time world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao has apologized after sparking outrage in the Philippines by saying gay people are “worse than animals.” The 37-year-old, who is running for a seat in the country’s senate, made the remarks on a television program broadcast by Filipino station TV5. Campaigning to secure one of 12 national seats he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18936,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18932\/revisions\/18936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}