POC starts spade work for 2005

Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit has bared a nine-point program that would help ensure the smooth, successful staging of the 23rd Southeast Asian Games in the country in 2005.

Dayrit said the members of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee (Philsoc) will use the program not only to organize the biennial event successfully but help the Filipino athletes perform well against their regional counterparts.

On top of the program is whether or not the country still needs to build a new main stadium. Otherwise, the organizers will have to go through the process of selecting which of the existing venues will have to be renovated or refurbished.

"We have to decide on this come May. We must have a definite position by then or it would be too late because you’d need as much as two years to build a medium-size stadium," said the POC chief.

Contrary to what some quarters claim, Dayrit said the country has the luxury of time in preparing for the 2005 Games, unlike in 1991 when the Manila SEA Games Organizing Committee (Mansoc) was organized barely 11 months before the event.

"We’re in a very advantageous position this time because we’re almost three years away from 2005," said Dayrit, reacting to Sen. Robert Jaworski’s recent statement that the country does not have enough time and resources to prepare for and host the Games.

Second, the Philsoc must finalize the guidelines for site selections and choose among the different cities and provinces that have submitted their letters of intent to serve as hosts. So far, there are seven bidders like Manila, Pampanga, Bacolod and Cebu.

"We’re considering a maximum of three sites — the main hub that will host majority of the sports and probably two other remote hubs or somewhere in the provinces where each one of them will host five sports," Dayrit added.

The same format was applied during the 2001 SEA Games with the main hub in Kuala Lumpur which hosted at least 20 sports and five each in Johore Baru (400 kms away from the Malaysian capital) and another five in Penang.

"It will be the same in Vietnam this year with 22 sports in Hanoi, the capital city, and 10 in Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon. It’s different in the Olympics where games are held in just one city and therefore it is named after the city and not the country," Dayrit said.

Third on the list is the preparing of the Games logo and mascot or in short, the need to come up with an identity. Then comes the need to prepare a master plan for the budget with the help of the Philippine Sports Commission.

Fifth on the program is the setting up of a marketing campaign, the naming of a marketing agent and the construction of a marketing plan. The marketing of the 1991 Manila SEA Games started just a year before the event, and proved too short a time.

"If we start marketing the 2005 SEAG this year, the sponsors who would come in will have the advantage of a greater mileage of being associated with the Games from 2003, 2004 and 2005," said Dayrit, also president of the national fencing association.

Sixth is the preparation for the turnover rites this December shortly after the closing ceremonies of the Vietnam SEA Games. The POC plans to come up with a short presentation, in Vietnam and in the Philippines, of the turnover.

Then the Philsoc, in coordination with the PSC and the different National Sports Associations, will decide on a performance target and finalize the strategy for the team preparation.

Eighth on the list is the equipment purchase — from competition equipment to scoring machines and other apparatus. Doing this earlier would allow the organizers to start purchasing them this year and save themselves from the burden of a bigger budget requirement on the last year.

Last but certainly not the least is the awareness campaign that would make everybody informed of the country’s hosting of the Games.

"This nine-point program is only for this year," Dayrit stressed. "Because next year, there are more things to be done and it’s no joke. It’s different from the SEA Games of 1991 because this time, more athletes will participate, more sports will be contested, and the standard of competition is higher."