WE WEREN’T supposed to host the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, but former Philippine Olympic Committee president Peping Cojuangco snookered us into hosting one. It was the Seag Federation just before the 2015 edition, and Brunei said it couldn’t host the 2019 edition because the rich nation was unprepared.

So Peping graciously stepped in, volunteering that the Philippines take over the hosting gig. Only Peping’s allies were happy with the gesture. Remember this was 2015, and this came just months after Peping, in a first move for an incumbent POC president, joined calls for the then sitting president Noynoy Aquino--his nephew and the guy who appointed his then ally Philippine Sports Commission Ritchie Garcia---to resign.

Most of his critics thought the move to replace Brunei as host was meant to bury questions over the 2005 hosting, which was hounded by questions on how the funds were spent as these were unliquidated.

I think, back in 2016, during the first Senate hearing the present PSC admin attended, they raised the same issue.

Peping tried to worm his way into the Duterte team when he won, but since PSC chairman Butch Ramirez and staunch Peping critic Mon Fernandez had the President’s ear, he never got in and back in 2017, the consensus was we were giving up the 2019 Seag hosting.

But that all changed when Peping teamed up with Alan Peter Cayetano and we pushed on with the hosting and as expected, the issues over the 2005 hosting have all been forgotten.

And what do you know, there are questions over how the money for the 2019 Seag was spent and now we are volunteering to be the standby backup for future Seag hosting?

Something smells.

In 2009, according to a GMA report, the Commission on Audit (COA) told the 2005 Philippine Seag Organizing Committee (PhilSoc) to liquidate some P74 million it received for the 2005 hosting gig.

And just last month, the COA flagged some irregularities in the construction of the P8.5 billion New Clark City project that was used as the main hub for the Seag. Any probe to determine whether there really are irregularities are blocked by politicians who think such probe is an insult to the Filipino athlete.

Now, we want more Seags?

Before we even begin to volunteer to take over for the next host that backs out or even if we wait our turn in another 11 cycles of the Seag, shouldn’t we make sure first that questions over the 2019 hosting are answered? Forget questions over 2005. The 2019 hosting did its job in making us forget it.