Angping won't fund additional athletes for Laos

MANILA, Philippines - The “have-money-will-travel” scheme may not be the best approach to the current impasse regarding the size of the Philippine delegation to the 25th Southeast Asian Games in Laos in December.

Philippine Sports Commission chairman Harry Angping of the Philippine Sports Commission, the government’s funding arm in sports, said he will stick to the 153 athletes and 47 officials earlier given the green light to Laos.

Angping said the number was arrived at after a series of meetings between Philippine Olympic Committee second vice president Mario Tanchangco and PSC commissioner Jose Mundo.

Tanchangco is also the chef de mission of the RP Team to Laos although higher officials of the POC said whatever was agreed upon last Tuesday is not the official stand of the POC.

Angping said if that’s the case, then why did they ask Tanchangco to attend the meetings right from the start. “It’s a slap on Mario’s face, maybe the POC should remove him or replace him as chef de mission,” he said.

The POC said it wants a bigger delegation to Laos and is even willing to spend for the athletes outside of the 153 that were earlier mentioned, and it will do it even without help from the PSC.

The PSC had wanted to fund only 130 athletes to Laos because it believes that these are the ones with chances of winning medals in the biennial event scheduled Dec. 9 to 18.

But when Tanchangco brought a list composed of 153 athletes to his meeting with Angping and Mundo last week, in time for the deadline for the different sports associations to submit their list of qualified athletes, the PSC agreed.

“Since it was not too far from what we wanted, which was 130, then we agreed to fund 153 athletes,” said Angping of the list composed of gold and silver medalists during the 2007 Thailand SEA Games plus some promising athletes.

The PSC believes that funding athletes to Laos, even if they don’t have chances of winning the medals, is not quite practical.

“I will stick to that number (153 athletes). If they want more than that then it’s up to them (POC). But I hope they don’t do that because it might affect the morale of those who really qualified,” said Angping.

“Those who qualified under certain criteria may be affected knowing that those who have the funding can join the team anyway. It could affect their morale,” he added.

Angping said whatever is saved by sending a smaller delegation, and this could amount to millions, will be offered as incentives to those who will win the gold in Laos.

Last week, Angping announced that the PSC is putting up another P100,000 for every gold medal won, and this will be on top of the P100,000 that will come from the national government.