PSC eyes sponsors for athletes

MANILA, Philippines - With no additional funding from the national government forthcoming, the Philippine Sports Commission is looking at launching an “adopt-an-athlete” program to ease the burden of providing for the national team members’ needs.

“The target of the PSC is to tap the private sector to adopt an athlete. We’re looking at a budget in terms of basic allowance, nutrition and medication, and that’s P20,000 a month per athlete, or P240,000 a year per athlete,” PSC commissioner Jolly Gomez said recently.

He added that the PSC will prepare a marketing program to help “sell” the athletes to prospective “foster parents.” The sports body, he added, will set in motion the adopt-an-athlete program once the PSC’s done with its staging of the Philippine National Games.

This will not be the first time that the government sports body will seek partnership with private corporations for Team Phl. In the build-up to the 2005 Southeast Asian Games that the country hosted and eventually topped, the PSC came up with the Medalyang Ginto godfather program, with some of the country’s largest corporations backing teams from different sports.

The PSC has no choice but to look for extra funding elsewhere after President Aquino himself told officials in a recent meeting that the national government wants to focus its resources primarily on national issues like the budget deficit, health and education and disaster-prevention efforts.

Mr. Aquino also suggested that the PSC take a look at focusing on “winnable sports” instead of spreading its resources over 52 sports.

For this year, the PSC has earmarked P400 million for the various national sports associations (NSAs).

“We’ll use 2011 as a measuring stick. Let’s review the performances at the end of the year and if you did not perform pasenya na lang. But with this condition, I think the NSAs will try their best to prove they’re worthy of funding,” Gomez said.