Thursday, June 07, 2007 Billiards promoter urges changes in sport By Rommel C. Manlosa Sun.Star Staff Reporter
SCHOLARSHIPS for billiard players, equal distribution of slots for young players to international tournaments and unity in the Billiards and Snooker Council of the Philippines (BSCP) are among the priorities that should be looked into by the billiard leaders in the country.
“Look, other countries are fast catching up, while we, we are just interested in winning. We should start the development of billiards in our young players,” said Perry Mariano of Bugsy Promotions in a lunch conference held yesterday.
Mariano, who owns the Bugsy Promotions that parades top caliber cue artists led by 2006 WPC world champion Ronnie Alcano, Cebuanos Warren Kiamco and Antonio Gabica, Dennis Orcollo of Surigao City and Gandy Valle, also wants the involvement of the government, particularly the Department of Education, in guiding young players in getting academic degrees.
“Despite billiards giving many honors to the country, it cannot surpass the popularity of basketball. It cannot match the marketing of basketball, why?
Because most of the players can’t even read and write decently, so we need to re-package the image of our billiard players, send them to school, give them scholarships and have an inter-school tournaments where they can develop, and probably we can bring the game to a much higher level,” said Mariano.
Programs
He said this kind of school programs is already being practiced in some other Asian nations such as Taiwan and Indonesia.
“Taiwan and Indonesia are doing this now and it paid a lot. They now have young good players who can even take the lights out of our veterans. My fears is that one day we will be left with nothing else and our rivals will reap the fruits of what we had sown,” he said.
With our aging players still the top choice by billiards officials, Mariano admitted it won’t be long for the Philippines to run out of good players if the system is not changed.
“That’s why among my players, I give priorities to the young guns. Because those in their 30s have proven their worth already.
This time, we have to develop the young ones. I send them to international competition, so they will experience what it is like to play in big tournaments. And hopefully they could replace the older guys,” he said.
Mariano also manages young players like Jeff de Luna, Roberto Gomez, Carlo Viado and Jherome Peña.
On the other hand, he is also concerned with the poor money management of the players, who tend to waste their money on buying unnecessary things and gambling.
