Reminder: Manny Pacquiao Would Like To Execute Anyone Who Has A Poppy Seed Bagel 

This Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao will fight Jesse Vargas on pay-per-view. The matchup is thoroughly forgettable. But Pacquiao’s management would like to remind you that in his political career, he wants to execute many, many people!

Manny Pacquiao should be retired. He has proven everything there is to prove in boxing, he is not getting any better, and, on a practical level, he has another job: he is a senator in the Philippines. This is an important and high-ranking political position in a nation of 100 million people that is run by Rodrigo Duterte, a madman whose version of a War on Drugs is to kill thousands of drug dealers and users with state violence.

One of Duterte’s close allies in his murder campaign? Manny Pacquiao. 

In fact, Pacquiao is so proud of his political record that his PR team, in a press release touting his October 26 media workout in L.A., decided to include the following paragraph:

In addition to training for his challenge of World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion JESSIE VARGAS,(Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas and produced and distributed Live on Pay-Per-View) Senator MANNY “Pacman” PACQUIAO has a very important full time job. He is one of 24 members holding a seat in the Philippine Senate. We thought you’d like to see what he has been doing since he was sworn-in in June — the committees he serves and the bills he has filed:

Following is a numbered list of Pacquiao’s 15 Senate committees and a list of 17 bills filed by Senator Pacquiao. In a fucking boxing press release. The most sensational of these came out months ago, but the promoters went out of their way to include this information in the leadup to this fight.

I guess it was relevant in the sense that three of the bills filed by Pacquiao are proposals to expand the use of the death penalty: DEATH PENALTY ON THE HEINOUS CRIME OF AGGRAVATED RAPE, DEATH PENALTY ON THE HEINOUS CRIME OF KIDNAPPING, and DEATH PENALTY AND INCREASED PENALTIES ON CERTAIN HEINOUS CRIMES—the last of which would provide for the death penalty for anyone importing or directing someone else to import any illegal drug into the Philippines “regardless of the quantity and purity involved, including any and all species of opium poppy or any part thereof or substances derived therefrom even for floral, decorative, and culinary purposes.”

Manny Pacquiao would like to execute anyone possessing a poppy seed bagel.

Be sure to tune in Saturday night!