Look who's cheating?

There is a saying in boxing circles that you can never win in Thailand against a Thai opponent unless you knock the daylights out of the guy. The saying is so pregnant with meaning it is extremely difficult not to see what it means.

Now comes no less than the highest government official in Thailand, the prime minister himself, Thaksin Shinawatra, publicly accusing the Philippines, host of this year's 23rd Southeast Asian Games, of cheating.

Let us set aside for a moment whether Thaksin has the goods on his accusation or not and whether the Philippines, before it rises up to defend itself, is actually beyond contempt and dwell on the propriety of Thaksin's actuations.

Of course there are instances when world leaders can become so cocky, like US President George W. Bush, that they think they can just publicly cast aspersions on any country as if its people are not entitled to their own dignity and sensibility.

For the most part, however, world leaders are expected to be guided by protocol and diplomacy in their public utterances and actuations. They are expected to observe the highest degree of professional decorum.

When Thaksin publicly accused the Philippines, which was leading in the medal standings, of rigging the results of the Southeast Asian Games, he in effect acted like he was no better than an uneducated Bangkok thug.

If he has any concerns regarding the conduct of the games, it was well within his powers to pick up the phone to make a direct call to Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and tell her directly, in private, what those concerns are.

Then, it would be up to Arroyo to ensure that those concerns are addressed by perhaps directing a probe of the games. And it would have been up to Arroyo whether to be discreet or not about it because then, it would be a Philippine affair.

How irresponsible of Thaksin to do what he did, especially since we do not think he has the goods on his accusations, merely relying on his own perceptions based on what he read in Thai newspapers and saw on tv, as he himself admitted in statements quoted by the press.

Well, one can expect the Thai press to be rooting for Thai athletes and for Thai reporters to feel bad about losing. After all, who wouldn't. But Thaksin should have been a cut above the ordinary Thai, to whom a victory has to be achieved, at whatever cost.

Indeed, it is perhaps this consuming preoccupation about winning by whatever means that gave rise to the saying we mentioned at the beginning of this article, that at least in boxing, any foreign boxer who can't win by way of an indisputable knockout in Thailand is a sure loser.

Of course, in the absence of an investigation, it is too early to rule out anything. Maybe there was cheating, in which case those who did must be punished. Or maybe there was none, and that the Thais are probably just poor losers.

The lack of propriety in the Thaksin accusation aside, the allegation is not exactly unfair, if only because, as we said earlier, the Philippines may not exactly be above contempt. There have indeed been instances when we have been caught cheating, as in Little League baseball.

And while our fielding of over-aged players in that prestigious international baseball competition for kids may have been an isolated case, having been caught with a hand in the cookie jar is a difficult reputation to live down. It sticks on our forehead for ages to come.

As a footnote to all these, however, perhaps it is time to ask the question as to how come the conduct of sports has now sunk so low. Every now and then, there is hardly any sports discipline that has not been rocked by allegations of doping and other forms of cheating.