This was the very candid, in-your-face message of Manila Rep. Manuel “Manny” Lopez to all the overstaying NSA presidents and officials occupying top positions in the Philippine Olympic Committee and the National Sports Associations who attended the congressional hearing called by the Committee on Youth and Sports Development at the Batasan complex.
“What is it in there (NSA) that attracts you to stay even when you cannot deliver anymore? There are many young sports leaders today who are more than qualified and creative to take over. You should resign and let them take over.”
Lopez did not mince words. Know what? You could hear a pin drop. No one, yes, no one opened his mouth to register a protest. The truth muted them all.
For the record, majority of NSA chiefs have been there for more than twenty years. I’ve known them since the early 90s and they are still there.
I was there at the committee hearing chaired by Hon. Conrado Estrella III, sports being my first journalistic love for more than three decades of coverage. PSC chair Butch Ramirez and POC chief Jose “Peping” Cojuangco tangled in a civil but unmistakably intense debate, moving away clearly from the principal topic affecting the country’s participation in the forthcoming SEA Games in August in Malaysia.
Lopez is the son of the late former Manila Mayor and ABAP president Mel Lopez. The father and son tandem came into ABAP in 1987 until 2005 where they led the country’s surge into international fame that included an Olympic silver medal performance of Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco (1996 Atlanta), 3 Asian gold medal (1994 Hiroshima) harvest and consistently ruling the SEAG boxing competitions season after season.
The Lopezes gave up the ABAP helm when they realized it was time to cede it to someone better. MVP (Manuel V. Pangilinan), the business tycoon who is always everywhere has, sadly, not even come close to duplicating the Lopezes’ boxing record since.
I should know. I was a POC insider. For the record, I even helped in the election of a reluctant candidate to the top post of the Philippine Olympic Committee.
Manny Lopez was in fact reacting to a plaint by Cojuangco et al that the PSC has not been adequately funding the needs of national athletes gearing up for the SEAG.
Ramirez, for his part, echoed a long-time rationale that the POC and the NSAs have not been promptly liquidating the monies given them by the government sports agency.
Ramirez stressed that RA 6847, the law that gave birth to the PSC, grants unto it visitorial (and scrutiny) powers to ensure that the millions of taxpayers’ money funded to the POC and the NSAs are properly accounted for.
I fully agree with Ramirez. People just probably don’t realize how much corruption there is in sports. The NSAs and their long-sitting officials are “thriving” because they are in collusion with some unscrupulous sports officials where they plot schemes to defraud the government by “overpricing” their needs. Follow the drift?
Ramirez’ action is not government intervention as some smart-alecks interject which might lead to a suspension by the International Olympic Committee.
The Chinese government we all know subsidizes and fully spends for its athletes who compete in the Olympics, World Championships and other IOC-organized sports competitions. The IOC has not suspended it. Why should we be threatened with suspension then?
My position is that the PSC is not, per se, a funding agency. If this is so, it would be at the mercy (beck and call) of the POC and the NSAs. The visitorial powers granted unto it by RA 6847 meant that it can check the abuses of the latter and appropriately mete out accruing penalties.
If the POC and its member-NSAs fail to liquidate taxpayers’ money given them, the PSC has every right to withhold funding until the former complies with government auditing and accounting regulations.
Otherwise, what’s the use of having a PSC if it is merely a funder?
The PSC, for this matter, is the top government agency that rules and regulates amateur sports.
In conclusion, I find this quote from Edmund Hillary, the first man to successfully scale Mt. Everest, very apt: “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) GOD BLESS THE PHLIPPINES!
