‘We’ll do better in 2005’

HANOI, Vietnam (Via Globe Telecom) — The main bulk of the Philippine athletic delegation arrived in Manila on board a chartered Philippine Airlines flight last night, bringing home the 48 gold medals it won from the 22nd Southeast Asian Games.

The delegation, headed by Philippine Sports Commission chairman Eric Buhain, included members of the teams from basketball, chess, cycling, canoeing, wushu, gymnastics, fencing , badminton, table tennis and wrestling — the last sports played in the SEA Games here and in Ho Chi Minh City down south.

Leaving today are the Philippine secretariat and officials, led by Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit, chef de mission Julian Camacho and POC/PSC task force chair Steve Hontiveros.

Members of other sports left earlier on staggered dates, two days after the completion of their respective events.

"I am happy about the performance of the Philippine team. I can’t ask for more. We’ll do better in 2005," said Camacho of the Philippines’ haul of 48-54-75 gold-silver-bronze medals for fourth place behind Vietnam (158-97-91), Thailand (90-93-98) and Indonesia (55-68-98).

Malaysia, which was leading the Philippines going into the last day of competitions, had only one gold to show, courtesy of the women’s basketball team, to end its campign with 44-42-59.

"They responded very well, more so on the last day when we had to win the five golds to beat Malaysia for fourth place," he added.

Every gold medal is reportedly worth P100,000 while a silver is worth P75,000 and a bronze P50,000.

He said the Philippines must now look forward to the greater task of staging the Manila SEA Games in 2005 and winning as convincingly as the host nation.

"We should not stop here‚" he said. "Kung tutuusin kaya rin natin ito (what the Vienamese had achieved)."

Camacho is also head of the wushu association which won six gold medals.

"We reached our target, but we could have made more if not for the foul officiating," said Camacho, referring to the difficult battles they had to fight against three Vietnamese in the finals of the sanshou (sparring) event.

Rene Catalan, gold medalist in the World Championships in Macau this year, suffered a swollen leg from his bout with Thai Samrit Yassapol in the semifinals and lost to Vietnamese Le Cong But in the gold medal round.

"I offered P50,000 for the gold in the sanshou events and two responded," he said.

"That’s good. Panalo sila, talo ako ng P100,000," he said jokingly.

Wushu was the second most productive sport with six gold medals after athletics (8) and taekwondo (5).

Wrestling and fencing had four each.

Wrestling was the most productive per player entered, having won 18 medals from 16 players entered in the Greco-Roman and freestyle categories. It was the only country to win the gold as Vietnam, where wrestling is as popular as basketball in the Philippines, won 18 of the 22 golds.

However, wrestling secretary general Red Dumuk made good his earlier decision to resign if his team did not reach the five-gold target.

"We were looking for six and we believed we could get at least five. One of our bets — Jimmy Angana — had the flu before he came to the SEA Games and had to get acupuncture treatment," said Dumuk.

"I had asked him if he should quit, and he insisted on playing," he added.

Angana lost his first bout but went on to win the next three as he recovered and got the silver.

He said his resignation should convey a message to the organizers that competitions should be handled at the fairest level possible and should serve as an example to certain non-performing NSAs whose sport had not won medals but whose officials still remain in office.

"Meyron diyang mga NSAs na hindi man lamang nakapag-medal at nariyan pa ang mga officials nila," he said. His resignation takes effect Dec. 30.

At least wrestling was fourth among 32 sports on its inaugural competition, he said.