POC at PSC kumpiyansa sa tagumpay ng 2005 SEAG

Kumpiyansa sina Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco at Philippine Sports Commis-sion (PSC) Officer-In-Charge (OIC) William ‘Butch’ Ramirez na matagumpay na maidadaos ng bansa ang Southeast Asian Games at makukuha ng RP Athletes ang overall title.

"Like everybody else, they want to be champion but I will assure this, if we win, and we will be with our heads up high," wika ni Cojuangco.

Sinabi ni Cojuangco na ang pag-apruba sa karagdagang 53 events para sa kabuuang 441 gold medals na pinadebatihan sa SEA Games Federation Council kamakalawa ng 11-member countries ay hindi para sa benepisyo ng bansa para sa kampanya sa overall title.

"Nobody will say that we took advantage of any situation. I’m making sure of that, we’re going to host this like the way it was intended to be, a friendly competition amongst friends in Southeast Asia," wika pa ni Cojuangco. "We will win because we deserve to win because our athletes are better."

Ayon naman kay Rami-rez, bagamat magiging mahigpit na kalaban ng bansa para sa overall title ang Vietnam, Thailand at Malaysia - "I think it’s great that we are the host and I think all our athletes will deliver. Our greatest advan-tage is being the host," aniya

Patungo sa huling pitong buwan bago itanghal ang 23rd SEA Games sa Novem-ber 7 hanggang December 5, naniniwala sina Cojuangco at Ramirez na walang problema sa paghahanda ng bansa.

"I can’t give any percentage how ready are we in hosting the Games but at this stage, we don’t have a problem hosting the Games. Most of the existing venues will be repaired, there’s no need to construct new faci-lities," pahayag ni Cojuangco.

"I don’t see any problem with the additional events, The PSC will go down seriously on venue prepa-rations, equipment preparations and especially on the training of our athletes," sabi naman ni Ramirez. (CVOchoa)