Atleta organizers confident of Erap approval

The Philippine Sports Commission yesterday expressed confidence in getting President Estrada's endorsement of its Atleta Program even as it vowed to iron out kinks in the elite-based sports program in two months.

"We're confident we can get the President's endorsement. We feel the program is going smoothly and we expect to conduct the 'pledging sessions' in the next two months," said Ramon Suzara, executive director of the elite-based sports program.

Suzara and PSC commissioner Richie Garcia submitted to the Office of the President the details of the program earlier in the week, including the proposed dates and funds to be alloted to the beneficiaries of the program.

Presidential chief of staff Rolando Ramirez and Presidential assistant Rene Soriano had asked Garcia and Suzara to provide them a list of probable corporate sponsors so as to give the President an idea on which company to seek corporate support.

The Atleta Program is designed to draw corporate sponsors to finance the training of athletes in 15 elite sports, where Filipinos are believed to have chances to vie for gold medals in the 2002 Pusan Asian Games and the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. The events are athletics, archery, billiards, boxing, bowling, fencing, golf, gymnastics, judo, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, karatedo, lawn tennis and wushu. - Joey Villar

The PSC, according to Suzara, would need more than P300 million to finance the program, geared towards winning the country's first gold medal in the Olympics.