PSC Commissioner Ramon Fernandez shared some interesting tidbits regarding the national sports scene during a meeting with sportswriters. The Philippine Olympic Committee has officially made known its stance against the PSC’s latest actions, when the sports agency entertained groups not aligned with the POC.
The move has apparently ruffled the feathers of some of the POC members, swimming, specifically, when Peping Cojuangco and company met PSC chairmain William Ramirez.
But the good chairman, it seems, told off the POC, which was aided, curiously, by former PSC chairman Ritchie Garcia who is now a consultant of the national olympic body.
“You’re exclusive, we are inclusive,” Ramirez reportedly told Peping et. al.
What did the good chairman mean? The POC is for the national sports associations, one for each sport, but since there are groups that are on the outside looking in—swimming and volleyball to name a couple—the PSC welcomes them to the chagrin of the POC. Under the Garcia and Cojuangco partnership, PSC funds go to the NSAs through the POC. That’s been cut.
The funds of the PSC is no longer the exclusive use of the POC but will go where its supposed to go and any group, regardless of its standing in Peping’s court, can get funds as long as it can show the proper papers and programs.
Mon, the outspoken enforcer of the PSC, too was a target of POC, which seemed intent on trying to drive a wedge between the chairman and the commish. Which was a big mistake because it merely strengthened the resolve of the chairman that their current drive for athletes is on the right track.
And one of those drives is to make the NSAs accountable for the funds they received from the government, a basic thing to do. Public funds go to private groups, hence these groups must be able to show where the money was spent, right?
As of now, the unliquidated money for the NSAs is P150 million. Please do take not that just because it’s unliquidated, it doesn’t necessarily mean it went to the pockets as is the common misconception. It simply means the NSAs have yet to submit their liquidation reports. It’s a no-brainer for the NSAs that practice transparency, and quite a headache for those who practice creative accounting.
The NSAs have until May 13 to submit their reports and those that fail to do so will no longer receive funding.