Court of Arbitration

SINGAPORE — Landing at Singapore’s Changi airport last Tuesday was a pleasant experience especially after a comfortable Philippine Air Lines (PAL) flight PR 503 from Manila. The order that Singaporeans are noted for allowed me to step out of Changi within the usual 10 minutes after clearing immigration and to hop into a taxi for my appointment at the Orchard St. area.

Passing through Singapore’s expressways from Changi, I could not help but notice the tree-lined sides of the road. The trees are uniformly pruned, like school kids who have the same crew cut, and planted at distances precisely measured.

The general state of orderliness prompts Onie Palmos-Velasco, former Vice Dean of the De La Salle Graduate School of Business (DLS GSB) and wife of Robin, a J&J executive assigned in Singapore and himself a former professor at DLS GSB, to remark that "while marveling at the order with which those trees were planted and maintained, the spontaneity of nature is somehow lost because the trees sport the same haircut and are standing every so many meters from each other, like soldiers standing rigidly at attention and then marching in cadence."

After getting the initial meetings out of the way in the first few days, I proceeded to the Nanyang Technological University Executive Centre (NTUEC) where the second QS Asian Pacific Professional Leaders in Education (QS APPLE) was held. I was there, yesterday, Friday, to speak on "Asian Accreditation: Issues and Concerns." Earlier, on Thursday, I listened to Ramon del Rosario, Jr.,Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DLS Professional Schools Inc. and CEO of PHINMA capture the crowd’s attention by sharing the PHINMA experience in providing low-cost, no frills education to the lower middle class and to the so-called least advantaged.

With a great number of football-playing countries among the close to 500 delegates who attended the conference, it was not surprise one favorite topic in between formal meetings was the recently-concluded 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

There was no shortage of stories and comments both in the conference and in Singapore’s English broadsheets and Chinese tabloids about the finals between Italy and France, which the latter won via penalty shootout, and the celebrated head butting by France’s Zinedine Zidano of Italy’s Marco Materazzi. The former was ejected from the game, a fact that could have lead to France’s defeat.

Conference delegates exchanged anecdotes about the ungodly hours of the live broadcasts, as in the case of New Zealand where there is a 10-hour time difference between the land of the Kiwis with Germany, or the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore where the time difference is seven hours. One Singaporean friend who was supposed to attend all three days of the conference extended his apologies for his failure to do so. His reason: he literally contracted World Cup fever or the flu because of staying up late for the TV broadcasts of the games.

A visit to Singapore is not complete without getting together with the amiable Atty. Loh Lin Kok, president of the Singapore Athletics Association (SAA), formerly known as the Singapore Amateur Athletics Association.

Loh who was president of SAA from 1981 to 2004, recently reassumed the presidency of the association after his designated successor decided not to run for reelection due to pressure of work. Loh who earlier gave way to his successor because "I believe in rejuvenation," was forced to seek the position again if only to preserve the gains made by the SAA over the last 25 years.

Loh, one of Singapore’s top-notch and high-profile lawyers, was, from 1970-1977, the Deputy Public Prosecutor and State Counsel of Singapore. A graduate of the University of Singapore, Loh was elected for a four-year term to the powerful Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in 2002 and is expected to be reelected this year for another four-year term.

The CAS which is like the international supreme court of justice for sports is the same body that will rule on the ongoing dispute between the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP) and Pilipinas Basketball if the controversy is not resolved internally by Philippine sports officials and the matter is referred to arbitration body. For Loh, 59, controversy is no stranger to him. One high-profile case that he handled involved the alleged use of a prohibited substance by trackster Jerome Young of the USA. 

According to USA Today, Young ran in the opening heat and semifinal round of the relay in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In 1995, then 19 and a senior in high school, Young set a state record of 45.01 in the 400 meters. Young was part of the world record-breaking 4 x 400 meter relay team in 1998 along with Michael Johnson, Antonio Pettigrew and Tyree Washington.

The Los Angeles Times said in August 2003 that Young won the world title at 400 meters and that he had competed in Sydney in 2000 after a positive test. The case caused tension between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the United States of America Track and Field (USATF). The USOC publicly chastised USATF saying, "we are not satisfied with the action that has been taken to date by USATF" after the former had ironically backed the latter in its dispute with the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF).

On June 29, 2004, the IAAF announced that "the (CAS) has decided that the Doping Appeal Board of USATF reached an erroneous decision when exonerating Jerome Young of a doping offence and that, accordingly, Jerome Young did indeed commit a Doping Offence on 26 June 1999."

Loh says that the above case took years to resolve and was a fitting prelude to the bruising contest he had with Steven Lee for control of the SAA last month. The contest attracted attention not just from sports enthusiasts but also from different sectors of Singaporean society much like some intramurals in our sports community.