Only a couple of days after his convincing victory over Brandon Rios in Macau, Manny Pacquiao went through a massive setback when the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in the Philippines issued a freeze order to his bank accounts.

Pacquiao faced the media during a conference on Tuesday where he addressed the tax evasion case. "The BIR has filed a case on me for a 2.2 billion Pesos tax evasion case for no reason," said Pacquiao. "I am not a thief," he added.

According to the reports of local newspaper Manila Bulletin, the freeze order has already been filed two weeks ago. However, it was only announced on Monday, two days after Pacquiao's forceful triumph against Rios. Furthermore, the local newspaper reported that the alleged tax evasion case arose when Pacquiao's accountant failed to explain the multi-million taxes obtained by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from his prize winnings in 2009 and his income tax returns (ITR). For the years 2008 and 2009, the BIR wants Pacquiao to pay $17.48 million and $32.6 million, respectively.

The Filipino boxer claimed that he handed the data to the BIR, but the agency disregarded it.

"I really do not have any idea why I am being singled out," said Pacquiao. "My lawyers provided them all the information that they want but they refuse to believe," he said. "They insisted that I earned more than what I actually did," said Pacquiao.

After his fight, Pacquiao promised to pay a visit and give help to the victims of the super typhoon in the Visayas region. Now that his bank accounts are frozen, he stated that he had to borrow money to fund his relief operations.

Pacquiao's lawyers had already expressed their remonstration against the warrant of garnishment issued by the BIR. The eight-division boxing champion could not help but feel that he is a victim of some political schemes.

The tax evasion case against Pacquiao first stemmed up in August. However, the BIR had already placed Pacquiao under fraud investigation as far back in 2010.

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