Tuesday, November 13, 2007 Officials agree on dropping US nutritionist
THE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) has reached a compromise in a recent controversial deadlock.
Last month, the PSC approved the budget for two American nutritionists who were supposed to accompany the 700-strong RP squad to the 24th Southeast Asian Games next month in Thailand. But the two were found to be not legitimate.
“They were supposed to make nutritional templates for our athletes. We were to fly them first class. We approved $13,000 for them,” said PSC chairperson William “Butch” Ramirez.
It was, however, later found that the Americans were not registered with the Nutritioners Association of the World, which is the only group sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.
Because of this, the PSC chief decided to cancel the plan to get the services of the Americans, which he did before flying to Chicago for the boxing Olympic qualifying.
“If we pushed through with it, I’d be answerable to the ombudsman,” Ramirez said.
This, however, caused the ire of some heads of the POC. Ramirez said that when he came back, they were lambasting him for the decision and even booted out Philippine Center for Sports Medicine (PCSM) head Dr. George Canlas as POC board member.
“It even came to a point where they called PCSM incompetent, which I think is a highly-irresponsible comment,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said that the PCSM is composed of the “most reliable doctors, pediatricians, nurses, therapists, conditioning experts to name some and they are registered with the world.”
On the other hand, Philippine Amateur Swimming Association president Mark Joseph said he was only misquoted and that he did not call them incompetent.
“I was just misquoted and agree with chairman that it would be irresponsible if I said that. They have served aquatics athletes very well and I have no complaints,” Joseph said.
He added that he had already apologized to Canlas for it.
“I have apologized to Dr. Canlas for the bad feelings that this has caused. I just hope that this issue will be put to rest,” Joseph added.
Ramirez said that he insisted on sending the PCSM to the Sea Games, while allowing the POC to also send their own selection of medical experts.
“I really pushed for the PCSM members to go because these are people hired by the government and so they have a sense of accountability for the athletes. We allowed POC to send a group, but PCSM will be leading the team,” Ramirez added. (MCB)
