Nat’l indoor volley team out of SEA Games

The Philippine Volleyball Federation will not be fielding a team in indoor volleyball in the 24th Southeast Asian Games slated Dec. 6-16 in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

“The PVF board decided after thorough deliberation that our indoor volleyball teams need time to be competitive and sending them to Thailand is ill-timed, impractical and will just be a waste of money,” said PVF secretary-general Ottie Camangian through a statement.

Camangian said the country’s indoor teams are too young, having an average age of 19 years old for the women’s side and 21 for the men’s squad.

It also did not help that the men’s team lost its top spiker Ronnie Borlagdatan, who died of gun shot wounds a few months back after fighting off robbers in Cavite.

The PVF actually had planned to reinforce the Nationals with Fil-Am players but it didn’t materialize because of scheduling problems of the prospective players the group was targeting.

Funding is also a problem.

“The funding is very limited and many NSAs would like to join the SEA Games,” said Camangian.

The PVF, however, clarified that it would still send teams in beach volleyball where the country won a breakthrough medal courtesy of the Fil-Am pair of Diane Pascua and Heidi Illustre, who snared a bronze medal in the 2005 Manila SEAG.

“We will recommend to the Task Force the maximum participation of our beach volleyball teams in the SEA Games,” said Camangian.

Aside from the Pascua-Illustre tandem, the PVF is also looking forward to fielding Michelle Laborte and Michelle Carolino, former indoor players, Rhovyl Velayo and Parley Tupaz and Fil-Ams Chad Mowrey and Christian Tuyay.  – Joey Villar