THE Philippine Sports Commission will get P236 million from government to spend for next year.
The 2009 budget for the Philippine Sports Commission was approved last Thursday by the congress was a far cry from the budget submitted and is P30 million less than this year’s budget.
The congress and senate approved P208 million during the plenary hearing last Thursday and the amount was certified by the Department of Budget and Management. It is, however, a lot less than the P749.6 million requested by the PSC.
“The budget for next year is a lot less than this year. Our budget was a bit higher in 2008 because we needed to spend more for the preparation and the participation for the Beijing Olympics,” said executive director Fr. Vic Uy.
Although the budget is P30 million less than the 2008 budget, PSC chairman William “Butch” Ramirez felt there was no reason to complain.
“Wala mi ni-angal sa gihatag nga budget, because this is already a blessing.
It is good enough that it got approved right away. We didn’t complain, instead, we will just bump our heads together to come up with a way on how we could properly manage this amount and to give this to the prioritized sports,” said Ramirez.
The bulk of this budget is allotted for the participation of Filipino athletes in the Southeast Asian Games.
Ramirez added that apart from this, the government also promised that the PSC will also be getting funds from the special stakes from the Philippine Racing Commission.
“So expectedly, we will have about 236 million because naay automatic gikan sa Phil Racing Commission,” said Ramirez.
Not enough
Ramirez admitted that the amount will not be enough to cover the cost of all of the programs of the PSC. He, however, takes comfort in the fact that the PSC will receive funding from the National Sports Development Fund of the Philippine Gaming Corporation—which, by law, is required to give a portion of its earnings to the PSC.
“The budget from the government will cover some of the operational expenses. And since it is not enough to cover all of it, diha na gamiton ang gikan sa Pagcor,” said Ramirez.
Pagcor’s contribution, according to Ramirez, varies between P30-40 million. “This is just enough to get us going with our grassroots program and to continue with our Olympic program,” Ramirez added.
PSC is already sending athletes to different countries to start the four-year preparation for the 2012 London Games.
Ramirez also admitted that since they could not give funds to all NSAs, they will only give to those that they have recently pinpointed to be priority sports.
“We can’t give to all NSAs just those that we believe can deliver positive results especially for the coming Sea Games,” said Ramirez.
Some of the priority sports are swimming, track and field, shooting, archery, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing and wushu. (MCB)
