The organizers of the Philippine Olympic Festival (POF) should do a better job if they plan to hold this event again next year.
Although I never had direct contact with these people, it seems very disheartening to hear complaints that they are not communicating properly with the teams that would participate in their event.
The regional eliminations or did they call it finals for the POF was originally set last February, but then they were pressed for time and decided to postpone it.
My source told me that there was a letter sent late in 2006 informing the National Sports Associations (NSAs) about the regional event, but the word on the postponement was disseminated via short message service or text message.
Wow! How unprofessional can these people be!
Then there is that matter about schedules. My source said that it takes a lot of time to know the final schedule of the events and when they do announce it, there is very little time to prepare.
The national finals is happening next week, but word about the official schedule, according to my source came only on October 31st.
The POF organizers probably think that we can just pluck money out of nowhere to send our teams to the competitions.
If a team can’t get the support from its local government unit (LGU), I hope the LGU is not blamed by the POF organizers.
I was informed by a source that they did get in touch with the LGUs, which is good, but then they only sent communication to Cebu Province and not to Cebu City thinking that the two are one and the same.
I have been to many national competitions personally during my heydays in judo and have experienced what it feels to be lacking funds when you travel.
The lack of funds was not only what hounded us, but also the lack of attention given to the competitors when we would reach Manila. I remember one time when we were sent to the PUP Sta. Mesa Campus as our billeting area for one national event. It wasn’t a bad place, but since there were not enough folding beds there, we were told to get dust-covered plywood that was to serve as our beds.
It’s a good thing we have relatives in Manila so we decided to just seek shelter in more comfortable venues.
National competitions allow us to test our mettle against the best of the country and it is only by going there that we can really tell if our training here is at par with what the best of the Philippines are doing.
However, events don’t just happen. Events don’t have a mind of their own. People running the events must carefully plan things out and do them properly so we can have a fair competition.
As of this writing, the Councilor Jack Jakosalem and Team Cebu City football director are looking for ways to help the football and judo teams make it to Manila.
We hope to send our teams to the national event and we hope it won’t be a national disaster with the way the organizers are doing things.