ONE of the sad realities in Philippine sports is that to represent the country, it isn’t necessary to be the best in the country in a certain sport. You just have to know the right people. Football went through that phase, until it changed the selection process and got more transparent.
For some individual sports like athletics, kissing the asses of the president or other officials is a must; for sports with breakaway groups like swimming, being affiliated with the correct group is a must. Before the current Philippine Sports Committee (PSC) stepped in, you can’t even use the government-owned Olympic swimming pool if you don’t belong to the right group.
PSC chairman William Ramirez changed that, refusing to play the political game and taking an athletes-first approach. Now, newly-elected Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Ricky Vargas wants the rest of the national sports associations (NSAs)--basically Philippine sports--to adopt the same stance. He wants NSAs to go beyond conflict and just look for the best athletes who can represent the country well.
If you remember, Mary Joy Tabal got caught in a conflict with the head of the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association and was basically an off-again, on-again member of the Philippine track team. We had the famous incident involving the gifted Echavez swimmers, who were barred from receiving a medal during the Arafura games because they didn’t belong to the “right swimming group.”
That practice has to change. The days of officials being more concerned about their positions rather than the athletes’ welfare should end.
Vargas wants to set up an arbitration committee for the POC that will look into the various conflicts among the NSAs. In the past, that may be considered a delicate matter because the POC president was putting more importance to getting the NSA president’s support than solving the conflict.
To end conflicts, I think Vargas can simply tell the fighting officials, Philippine sports need the athletes more than Them. They can either solve their issues or they both go and we look for a new set of officers.
It’s simple as that.
There should be a term and age limit too for officials and anyone who is beyond 80 should be considered retired from handling NSA affairs. We got so behind and Philippine sports got so messy because of guys unwilling to let go of their posts.