MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines on Sunday united to celebrate boxing hero Manny Pacquiao as he won an historic eighth world title, with soldiers, slum dwellers, and farmers hailing him as the greatest ever.

Pacquiao's pummeling of Antonio Margarito in Texas to capture the World Boxing Council super welterweight title caused a familiar upsurge in pride for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation's 94 million people.

"Pacquiao is the greatest boxer ever," said Aliudin Sumael, 43, a Muslim farmer who rushed to a cultural center in the strife-torn southern province of Maguindanao to watch the bout.

"I hope he can share his millions with us poor Muslims."

Pacquiao's rise from poverty to the top of world boxing has been one of the few enduring success stories in the Philippines over recent years, as society has struggled with grinding poverty, corruption and natural disasters.

The 31-year-old's sporting success helped him launch a successful political career and he was elected a congressman of the desperately poor southern province of Sarangani in national elections in May.

As has become tradition in the Philippines, soldiers fighting a long-running Muslim insurgency in the south put down their weapons on Sunday to watch their idol and expressed fleeting hopes of reconciliation.

"During the fight itself, the soldiers and the whole Filipino nation regardless of ideology, will be one, cheering for our Filipino hero," military spokesman Brigadier General Jose Mabanta told AFP before the bout.

"We can probably say that at least during that time, we will be united."

The fight was shown live on pay-per-view, broadcast on giant screens to audiences in stadiums and cinemas, and even shown on wide-screen televisions in street plazas and gymnasiums.

In a scene duplicated in plush sports bars and dusty public basketball courts, crowds of Filipinos cheered whenever their hero, nicknamed "the Pacman", landed one of his fierce assaults on the taller Margarito.

"He is really somebody that we can look up to and can be proud of. Every time he has a fight everybody unites," said Ben Articulo, 52, a barbecue stand operator in Manila.

As in past Pacquiao bouts, the crime rate dropped to practically zero as criminals were also busy watching the fight, said police spokesman Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz in a statement.

Government radio reported that even Philippine President Benigno Aquino, who was attending an Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Japan, managed to catch the fight.

As the meeting ended, Aquino rushed to his hotel to see the bout in a special operations centre set up by his security detail, where he cheered and applauded beside them, government radio said.

For many Filipinos, they are now desperate to see Pacquiao stage a long-awaited clash against American Floyd Mayweather Jnr to decide once and for all who who is the pound-for-pound king of boxing.

"Everyone wants to see the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, I think it's definitely going to happen," said Neil Sauz, 27, an architect who watched the fight in an upscale Manila mall.