Manny Pacquiao Drops Charges Against Oscar de la Hoya and Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions

Boxing champ and Sarangani Congressman Manny Pacquiao has dropped his defamation lawsuit against Oscar de la Hoya and his Golden Boy promotions chief Richard Schaefer.

Pacquiao filed the case in 2009 over dela Hoya's allegations that the pound-for-pound boxing champion used performance-enhancing drugs in all his fights.

Under the terms of their settlement, de la Hoya and Schaefer issued a statement and apology to Pacquiao, which reads:

Richard Schaefer and Oscar de la Hoya, on behalf of themselves and Golden Boy Promotions, wish to make it crystal clear that we never intended to claim that Manny Pacquiao has used or is using any performance enhancing drugs, and further state that we do not have any evidence whatsoever of such use," their statement said.

Manny Pacquiao is one of the greatest fighters of all time, and we apologize if anyone construed our prior remarks as in any way claiming or even suggesting that Manny uses or has used performance enhancing drugs."

However, Pacquiao still intend to pursue his legal battle against boxer Floyd Mayweather, who was also named in the former's original 2009 lawsuit where he claimed that Mayweather, his father Floyd Sr. and uncle Roger along with de la Hoya and Schaefer conducted a campaign to make people think he is using PED while negotiations for a possible Pacquiao-Mayweather bout is in progress.