Putting unshod foot into ungracious mouth

Thailand PM Thaksin Shinawatra questioned the 23rd SEA games with a shotgun blast for rigging. He admitted no time to watch the games, and yet, he tripped himself by saying that he often watched these games "and wondered" about the results.

Betraying his tactless irresponsibility, the PM's carping wasn't anchored on factual instances. He didn't cite what events in what particular venue, or the specific dates and protagonists or teams involved, and such other basic data on the insinuated manipulation of results.

Even a dimwit knows that the Philippines as host country is the targeted "culprit" for topping the gold medal harvest with Thailand at second.

Shinawatra's biased mind and his jaundiced eye could have been caused by pre-games press projections for the Philippines to land the overall medal plums. He forgets that any host country has built-in advantages because the host determines the specific events of Category 3, and has the biggest delegation for obvious reason.

While "sepak takraw", or "pencak silat", or "karatedo", or even "wushu", and such other unique regional games, aren't indigenous to Filipinos, but yet, had to adopt them and adapt to their disciplines as they had been chosen in the past meets by host countries during their turns.

Coming back to Thailand's beef, organizers of the SEA games for instance, have the basic equalizing rule that games played by, let's say Thailand and the Philippines, have referees/umpires, and judges from other participating countries presumed to be neutral and judiciously fair, as they belong to international federation pools.

On the day that its PM put his foot in his mouth, the Philippines lost the gold medal in the 5,000 meter run when Eduardo Buenavista was penalized for "illegal maneuvers" in blocking Thai rival Boonthung Srising during the race. The jury stripped Buenavista of the gold for impeding the Thai runner. That's proof of unbiased officiating.

It's a slap on the Thai PM that Chauyapak Siriwat, VP of the Thailand sports Council, Thai sports minister Gen. Charouck Arirachakaran, and chef de mission Charoen Wattasin have profusely apologized for the "inappropriate, baseless, and senseless report".

Perhaps, it was Shinawatra's guilty conscience that bedeviled him, since he who conjures or tolerates cheating is also biased that others are so like-minded… In the past SEAG and other Asian regional meets - including that time when Thailand garnered a 7 to 1 golds near monopoly in boxing - other Asian competitors complained almost in unison against biased officiating.

Indeed, one recalls past boxing events when Thailand boxers ran rings around all other nationalities which were flimsily attributed to the vagaries of registering points as boxing hits. Some imputed the obvious "inaccuracies" in scoring points as built-in "home court advantage", or part of "connections" with international federation boxing bigwigs, or owing to the "expertise" of its Cuban boxing trainers. Right or wrong, it became a consensus that to win against a Thai boxer, the opponent has to knock him out.

So now, with the bleak second fiddle in the 23rd SEAG sounding for Thailand for a change, its PM has started agonizing in desperation.

But, that's not reason enough for Shinawatra to put his unshod foot into his ungracious mouth, by coming up with unfair indictments which even his own Thai subalterns have apologized for as "inappropriate, baseless, and senseless". That's a no-no under international "comity" that strictly exacts utmost mutual courtesy and respect among world diplomats and leaders in all their international relations including in sporting events.