Pacquiao wins senate seat in Philippines

London, May 20 : Former Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, who recently retired from boxing to switch his career to politics, has earned a senate seat in the home country.
The 37-year-old grabbed around 16 million votes to become seventh among the 12 new members of the upper house of the Congress by the country’s elections commission.The results came a week after voters casted their votes to choose a president, vice president, 12 senators, 200 members and 18,000 local officials of the senate, the Mirror reported.Reflecting on his new journey, Pacquiao said he would focus and discipline himself as he used to do in boxing and also expressed his desire to re-introduce the death penalty for drug-related and other serious crimes.Pacquiao, who was among the frontrunner for a senate seat, had earlier dropped in the polls after he described gay couples as ‘worst than animals’.