Ramirez says RP bets still on target

DOHA — As the sputtering Philippine campaign in the Asian Games started to pick up with three bronze medals at the end of Day 7 Thursday, Philippine Sports Commission chairman Butch Ramirez said the country remains on track of its projection heading into the final week of the 15th staging of the quadrennial event here.

"At least we’re already in the medal tally with the two bronze medals," said Ramirez as he stepped out of the Qatar Sports Club Indoor Hall where the taekwondo event was held.

He was referring to the two bronze medals won by jins Kathleen Eunice Alora and Veronica Domingo, although the PSC chief, along the rest of the Filipino supporters, had hoped for a better finish for the pair.

But Alora fell short of her rally in the third round where she scored two points in the last 16 seconds and lost by one, 2-3, to Jingyu Wu of China in their semis duel in the finweight division.

Domingo, on the other hand, was clobbered and outclassed by Chonnapas Premwaew, who kicked her way to the final of the 63kg category with an RSC (7-0) victory.

Earlier, finweight John Paul Lizardo played a rather listless game after two wins and was outpointed by Raheem Ebrahim of Bahrain, 1-3, in the quarterfinal round and bowed out of the medal race.

Those two bronze medals went along with the first bronze chalked up by boxer Violito Payla, who became the first Filipino medalist in this Games with an RSC-O victory over Indian Jitender Kumar in the quarterfinal round in the flyweight division of the boxing competitions early Thursday afternoon.

That assured the 27-year-old slugger the bronze with Payla trying to improve that to at least a silver when he fights Chinese Bo Yang in the semis round on Sunday.

The three bronze medalists are already assured of P100,000 each in incentives and they stand to get P200,000 each more after President Arroyo approved the additional grants of P500,000 (gold), P300,000 (silver) and P200,000 (bronze) Thursday.

A gold medal win in the Asiad is now worth P1.5 million with the silver and bronze medalists’incentives hiked to P800,000 and P300,000, respectively.

Ramirez has predicted a haul of five gold medals by the Filipino athletes.

"There are more days to go and we’re still on target. Hopefully, we get that in taekwondo, bowling and boxing," said Ramirez.