by Moses Billacura
Congratulations to Jho-An Banayag of Maragusan, Compostela Valley Province for winning a gold medal in the recent Laos SEA Games. That’s worth P300,000, ladies and gentlemen.
South Cotabato’s Eduardo Buenavista also shared the top honors by ruling the men’s marathon.
Panabo City’s Charly Suarez made former Congressman Tony Boy Floirendo and current Congressman Anton Lagdameo smile these days when he brought home the 57-kilogram featherweight gold medal in boxing.
Fellow Panaboan Rey Saludar managed to win a bronze medal in the 51-kilogram flyweight class. That made Brgy.Una Boxing Program executive director Gene Rose Tecson sport a big smile, too.
Gandy Valle of Aurora St., Davao City copped a silver medal in the 8-Ball Pool singles and Ruth Duga-Duga provided another silver after settling second in the over 70 up to 78 kilograms division.
Davao golfers celebrated more when Chihiro Ayuban Ikeda, a product of the ICTSI Golf Development Program, wore the gold medal she won in the women’s individual division and helped her teammates bag the team gold medal.
Dabawenyos figured well, too, in diving with four silvers and one bronze medals. Jaime Asok and Ryan Fabriga wound up second (silver) in the 10-meter synchronized platform, then Nino Carog and Zardo Domenios added a silver in the 3-meter synchronized springboard. Carog also won another silver in the 3-meter springboard (individual) while Sheila Mae Perez also won a silver in the women’s division.
Fabriga won a bronze in the 10-meter platform event.
Dabawenyos Dexter and Frazier Alamara were members of the water polo team that settled for the silver.
The Philippines settled for fifth over-all with 38 golds, 35 silvers and 51 bronzes, a far-cry from the over-all title victory during the Manila SEA Games in 2005.
Anyway, to all SEA Games medallists from the Davao Region, congratulations!
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As we all know, there was this unending quarrel between officials of the Philippine Olympic Commitee and the Philippine Sports Commission prior to the Laos SEA Games campaign on December 9 to 18.
When Dabawenyo Butch Ramirez was chairman of the PSC, he worked smoothly with POC officials that led to the over-all championship victory for the Philippines in the 2005 edition.
Ramirez believe in peace-making efforts with the POC, known to have quarrelsome members.
This kind of approach was never duplicated by the current PSC head. Senator Greg Honasan, in his recent Davao visit, said that after Butch left the PSC, the fighting started.
And that’s so sad. No wonder our national athletes suffer when they are supposed to enjoy relative peace during training and the competition proper.
When will this end? My guess is that the infighting will not stop even when the national squads start preparing for the 16th Asian Games slated November 12 to 27, 2010 in Guangzhou, China.
Perhaps there is a need to change the names of the two sports organizations. We better call them the Problematic Sports Commission (PSC) and Problematic Olympic Committee (POC).
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