Heads of committees for 2005 SEAG named

Except for the sensitive administrative section, all the 21 other committees that will work hand in hand during the country’s hosting of the 23rd SEA Games in 2005 have been formed and its respective leaders and their functions identified by the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee or Philsoc.

Celso Dayrit, Philippine Olympic Committee president and Philsoc chairman, yesterday bared the list of the different working committees, including finance under Benjie Ramos, marketing services under Emet Penson, technical operations under Ritchie Garcia, public participation and tourism under Cynthia Carrion and special events under Tom Carrasco.

The persons tapped to head these committees all have deep involvement with sports, some of them either present officers of various national sports associations (NSAs) or past officials of the Philippine Sports Commission. Their expertise in their respective fields will help ensure a more systematic staging of the biennial meet.

The finance committee will handle cash management, budget control and accounting; marketing services the sponsors support, merchandising, ticketing and street advertising; technical operations the sports and events and its participants, rules control, competition manuals, officials and personnel and scheduling; and tourism the public awareness and spectators support.

The administrative committee will take care of the bidding and purchasing, recruitment and training of the athletes and personnel management. The person who will head this committee has yet to be identified.

The other committees and their respective heads are accreditation (Romeo Ribano), awards (Sander Tantoco), broadcast management (Victor Valbuena), ceremonies (Ernesto Fajardo), communications (Mari Martinez), conventions and conferences (Julian Camacho), coordination and liasons (Gen. Mario Tanchanco), cultural promotions (Becky Garcia).

Electronic date management (Noel Buenaventura), hospitality (Rosvi Guetos), media (Augusto Villanueva), medical (Dr. Raul Canlas), protocol (Capt. Rey Jaylo), traffic and security (Gen. Marlowe Pedregosa), transportation (Monchito Ilagan), and venue management and operations (Red Dumuk).

The PSC, under chairman Eric Buhain, is not part of Philsoc but will carry the heavy task of selecting, preparing, training and funding the national athletes who will try to win the gold for the country. The Philippines has only hosted the biennial meet twice—the first in 1981 and the last in 1991.. — Abac Cordero