MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Mikee Romero (1-PACMAN) said that the planning gaps that have recently been brought to the spotlight are nothing new, as he had experienced the same treatment himself when representing the Philippines in other countries.
"First of all, this is nothing new. This is my fourth SEA Games. We experienced the same [in] Thailand [and] Indonesia. I experienced it personally in Myanmar," he claimed in an interview on ANC's "Headstart" after supposedly having asked the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee for further details on the recent incidents himself.
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'Cambodian delegation may be at fault too'
Romero also pointed out that the error could also be on the part of the foreign delegation as well, saying, "I think it might be on the coordination side on the Cambodian or the other, 'no."
PHISGOC has been under fire recently after the Cambodian football team was reported to have waited for their hotel room for hours. They were given an empty conference room to wait in instead, where they were photographed sleeping on the floors and the chairs.
This, while a delegation from Timor-Leste was reportedly brought to the wrong hotel by their transportation accomodations. Even a member of the women's national football team took to her Facebook account to bemoan the subpar accommodations.
Romero, who also plays for the national polo team, was quick to highlight the overall scale of the SEA Games, saying that such an error was almost an inevitability because of the breadth of the PHISGOC's operations.
"It's a series of one problem after another. Eighty delegations came in all at the same time," he said. "Out of the 80, tatlo [lang] iyong nagkaproblema. They came in unexpectedly at four in the morning."
Asked about online accounts of volunteers who were not given their promised allowances, he again highlighted the large volume of human resources to work with: "You're mobilizing 12,000 all over the Philippines. Lahat 'to sabay-sabay na umaandar."
"This is a logistical problem, really, and how to bring the money there [to the volunteers] is also another problem," he added.
"This is the problem of doing multiple event areas. If you're doing just in Clark, controlled lahat. But you're doing it in 23 cities. Ideally it should be in one area only."
'Set politics aside'
In the same interview, he urged the public to lay down all their criticisms for the time being to allow the athletes to prepare mentally.
"As athletes, pag nakikita namin may problema, our morale goes down. So you have to set politics aside in this case and just help PHISGOC because we don't want to demoralize [the athletes]," he said.
"Our goal is to get one hundred golds for the country. Pabayaan muna natin yung SEA Games to flow through for 11 days lang naman. Tsaka tayo mag witch hunt at politics. We have to [be] a gracious host."
PHISGOC has been on the receiving end of a tumult of online backlash on many fronts: from its prepared accomodations for athletes, the expenditure of a P55-million SEA Games cauldron, preparations for the venues themselves and even the user interface and experience of its planned smartphone application.
The games are slated to officially begin on November 30.