MANUEL Monsour Tabibdel Rosario III (born May 11, 1965) is a Filipino actor, martial artist, producer, and politician. He was born in Manila and grew up in Bacolod City, his family hometown. His mother is Filipino of Arab descent.
Monsour is known as a Filipino taekwondo champion and actor starring in several Filipino and international action films. He is the Philippine Taekwondo Association Secretary General and a Philippine Olympic National Sports Association Martial Arts Council member.
He first learned martial arts under Joe Lopez-Vito, a Moo Duk Kwan-Tang Soo Do practitioner. After he returned to Manila for his high school education, del Rosario shifted to taekwondo in 1977 as a student of Hong Sung-Chon. Under Master Hong, del Rosario has attained a Korean 8th Dan taekwondo black belt.
He is a graduate of De La Salle University, Manila. Del Rosario joined the Philippine National Taekwondo Team in 1982 and remained until 1989, serving as the team's captain in his last four years on the team.
He has also served as a city councilor from the First District of Makati from 2010 to 2016 and later as congressman representing the same district from 2016 to 2019.
He opposed a Congressional proposal banning minors from participating in competitive full-contact sports.
Unlike Emmanuel Pacquiao, another athlete more known for his absence in the halls of Congress and the Senate, Monsour took his job seriously as a legislator. His House Bill 1526, or "An Act Banning Minors From Full-Contact Competitive Sports," would hurt the country's grassroots program in various combat sports.
Both athletes are now aspiring for higher offices. Senator Pacquiao is gunning to be the next president of the Philippines. So too Rep. Del Rosario before as a senatorial candidate of the thePartido para sa Demokratikong Reporma (Party for Democratic Reforms), commonly known as Partido Reporma (Reform Party), a political party in the Philippines founded by d by former Defense Secretary Renato de Villa when he left the ruling Lakas-NUCD after failing to get the nomination as the party's presidential candidate in the 1998 elections.
He chose then Pangasinan governor Oscar Orbos as his running mate. I won't vote for any candidate on the basis of party affiliation. I have nothing against celebrities whether they're relatives, actors or athletes.
I expect nothing less than performance and their impact on alleviating the plight of the "masa" for less state budget. I expect transparency in governance. As someone who worked with Transparency International-Philippines, I expect more with less, not more or less, as proof of effectiveness and efficiency, regularly posted on the internet. Is that too much to demand?