Prepared for the next

Unknown to many, the leaders of the Philippine Sports Commission are working frantically to pass on as much of their knowledge and experience as they can to the succeeding PSC Board, whoever they may be. Chairman Butch Ramirez, Executive Director Atty. Guillermo Iroy, Chief of Staff and Training Director Marc Velasco, and the four board members Arnold Agustin, Ramon Fernandez, Celia Kiram and Charles Maxey are compiling, collating and curating everything they’ve been through, to make the transition smoother. Ramirez first joined the agency almost a decade and a half ago as a commissioner, and has had two terms as chairman. In 2016, when he was reappointed by President Duterte, it took two months before his board got filled. Still, they had time to prepare for the next major event, the 2017 SEA Games. (The 2016 Asian Games were held in February, before they came on board.)

The next board, which takes office on July 1, 2022 at the earliest, will have just over two months to prepare for the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. This will be followed quickly by the Asian Youth Games in December in Shantou, also in China.

“The next chairman and commissioners will not have the time,” Ramirez explained in an interview with The STAR. “The chairman has to push all the line functions, give the commissioners oversight. Everything has to be ready right away.”

To this end, Ramirez has instructed Velasco and Iroy to lead a team that will prepare manuals for the next PSC leaders, to guarantee continuity, a weakness of the commission in the past. After the first set of officers appointed in 1990 stepped down, almost every succeeding batch has practically erased previous programs – good or bad – to put their own stamp on the agency. Ramirez is also taking steps to ensure that their successors will have sufficient funds to operate. A previous administration once tied up the commission’s funds for months, hampering the following board from functioning at full capacity immediately. Luckily, this PSC has a good relationship with Congress, so even this budget season has gone smoothly.

“If a commissioner comes in and doesn’t know anything, or has an attitude, the chairman has to handle it,” says Ramirez. “At the end of the day, we can fight, they can curse me, no problem. As long as we are professional and the job gets done.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting depletion of government funds also slowed down grassroots development, which is gradually being restarted. The PSC had to deal with the very expensive 2019 SEA Games first, then sustained the training of athletes preparing to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics for an additional year. All this without knowing when all of these events would ultimately push through. 2022 also has four big events. Aside from the Asian Games and Asian Youth Games, the Winter Olympics and SEA Games will be held in the first half of the year. That makes transition to the next government both more difficult and more crucial.