I will make no bones about it. I am very disappointed with the country’s recent performance at the Jakarta Asian Games.
Aren’t you?
Look at our ASEAN rankings – host Indonesia ranked 4th (31G-24S-43B); Thailand, 12th (11G-16S-46B); Malaysia, 14th (7-13-16); Vietnam, 17 (4-16-18); Singapore, 18th (4-4-24) and the Philippines, 19th (4-2-15).
Nakakahiya, di ba? Very embarrassing for a country that always uses media hype and spins to bolster its sports image.
China raked in more than 100 gold medals. Compare than to the 4 we got.
After weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz very early on handily snatched the first Asian gold, sports officials whooped it up like the Sioux revelry after Chief Sitting Bull routed Gen. Custer and his American cavalry at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Yes, temporarily Diaz’ triumph lifted our national spirit.
What further warmth our collective joy was the surprised gold medal performance of tiny Madielyn Didal in the unheralded game of street skateboarding. (This is not to belittle the women golf squad that bagged the individual and team golds, plus bronze to boot.)
For the record, all our ASEAN neighbors used to be tail-gating us in many previous athletic conclaves (including Japan and Korea), but today the reverse is haunting us.
We who have been chronicling our sports history for many decades can only fault those who are at the helm of Philippine sports.
The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), an NGO, and its member national sports association are autonomously in charge of elite sports. Meaning, the participation of the country in organized tournaments such as the SEAG, Asian Games and the Olympics are entirely in the hands of the POC.
The Philippine Sports Commission is the government agency that provides the funding for such participation.
I have observed that since the birth of the PSC (RA 6847) in 1990, the POC has remained dependent on government subsidy; meaning, millions of taxpayers’ money for the last 28 years are being funneled to the POC and its NSAs for the training and preparation of all national athletes in their roster.
Sometimes, I’m beginning to entertain the idea that the legislation of funding support in RA 6847 has done more harm than good to the overall sports situation.
We have produced an array of panhandlers in the persons of POC leaders and NSA presidents who ceased utilizing their enterprising endeavors to secure additional financing resources from private sponsors and entities.
Today, all these NSAs, not excluding the POC, have become pure mendicants, totally dependent on PSC “alms” to get their respective programs going.
Because of this reproachable situation, the spawning ground of native talents has not been totally cultivated, thus the POC and the NSAs are always on the look-out for Fil-American (Fil-foreign) talents to fill in their roster lack.
The PSC can be faulted for its past mistakes, of not being able to institute successfully its grassroots development and talent identification programs as well as coaches’ training and development concepts.
PSC funds are miserly inadequate to be split in half – for the elite sports and for grassroots – because this will be spreading itself too thin.
Diaz’ statements aired after winning the weightlifting gold tell of a melancholic sentiment that should prod sports officials to look at the mirror.
Don’t curse if I say: We are continuously plunging down the abyss.
This reminds me of Charles Lindbergh who said: “Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed.” (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.)
