MANILA, Philippines – Senator Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero yesterday dared national sports association leaders to walk the talk when they place themselves for evaluation in seeking government financial support.
Escudero, an independent vice-presidential candidate, said NSA leaders tend to “overpromise” in assessing their performance as each of the 42 regular members of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) compete for chunks in the very limited budget available from the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), the government’s financial arm in charge of national sports development.
The POC also has five associate member organizations and has given special recognition to five more sports groups.
The PSC is in charge of the country’s participation in the various international competitions like the Southeast Asian Games, the Asian Games and the various Asian and World Championships being held for each sport.
The POC, an independent body and a non-government organization directly under the International Olympic Committee (IOC), takes care of the Filipino athletes’ participation in the quadrennial Olympics, although it is still the PSC which shoulders most expenses in the athletes’ participation in the various Olympic qualifying meets.
Majority of the NSAs, however, have not been performing well in the past years, resulting in the Philippines’ dipping performance in the SEA Games, considered as the lowest in the totem pole of international events the country takes part in.
After the Philippines won the SEA Games overall championship in 2005, less than a year since presidential uncle Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco took over as POC president from Celso Dayrit, Filipino athletes have been downhill since then.
The Philippines, an erstwhile powerhouse in the region, has not breached past fifth place since then. It placed sixth in Thailand (2007), fifth in Laos (2009), sixth in Indonesia (2011), seventh in Myanmar (2013) and sixth again in Singapore this year.