Manny Pacquiao reflect on drugs as presidential election closes

Read Time:1 Minute, 1 Second

Retired boxer Manny Pacquiao has admitted he was naive when previously using drugs but has vowed to reduce the use of illegal substances in the Phillipines.

The former eight-division world champion is currently running for presidency in his home country after hanging up his gloves earlier this year.

Missing Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai reappears amid silence over sexual assault.

3 dead and hundreds injured as Scorpion attack in Egypt

He shocked the world by previously admitting to the use of marijuana and crystal meth when he was a teenager, and Pacquiao has vowed to ramp up prison sentences to combat the problem during his proposed presidency.

“We have to put in jail those who are using drugs, selling drugs – that’s what the law says,” he told AFP. “Before, I’m naive, that’s why I use drugs. I don’t know the law, nowadays people they know already that the law is not allowing the illegal drugs.”

And in his plan to succeed Duterte, Pacquiao has vowed to remove the bloodshed from the war against illegal substances offering them right to a fair defence.