Buhain vows probe on NCFP chess scam

Philippine Sports Commission chairman Eric Buhain promised yesterday to look into the complaint of the parents of 10 chess players who competed in the World Youth Festival last November in Greece.

The parents group recently wrote Buhain and asked the PSC chief to investigate why their children did not receive their allowances of $300 each from the National Chess Federation of the Philippines which raised over a million pesos for the trip.

In the letter, Armando Aguja, Benito Cua, Genevieve Mendoza, Nelson Mariano, Efren Ochoa, William So and Diosdado Fronda said allowances received by NCFP secretary-general Samuel Estimo and GM Eugene Torre "never reached the children who represented our country."

Part of the P2-million fund the First Gentleman Foundation raised for the SEA Games, with an additional funding of P.5 million from the PSC, was reportedly diverted for the Philippine team’s campaign in the World Youth Festival. Ten boys and girls competed in the under-10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 age groups of the tourney.

"The memory of our children drinking water from the lavatory because bottled water was too expensive is a very painful experience for the parents to remember," the parents said in a letter to Buhain.

In their liquidation, Estimo claimed a finder’s fee of over P400,000 and representation expenses of P40,000, also according to the parents.

Unnamed head trainers, assistant trainers and guest trainers and ghost "rental of training venue" were supposedly paid over P200,000 with meals and snacks for players and trainers costing NCFP P90,000. But the parents said they paid for their own children’s snacks.

Aguja, father of Arianna who competed in the under-16 girls age group, said he paid for his daughter’s plane fare. But Estimo claimed expense of air tickets for 10 players in his liquidation. — Abac Cordero