On amending the PSC charter

JAKARTA, Indonesia - It took me all of eight hours to get to Jakarta to Manila the other Sunday (Jan. 28, 2007). It was my longest trip to Jakarta since I first traveled to the Indonesian capital from Manila in 1983. From 1988 to 2007, I have gone to Jakarta around 10 times and it did not take me more than six hours to reach the Indonesian capital from Manila. This time, however, I had to take the circuitous route of Manila-Hong Kong-Jakarta. The Philippine Air Lines flight that would bring me directly to Jakarta the day before the conference at the University of Indonesia (UI) in Depok, at the outskirts of Jakarta, was fully booked. So was the Singapore Air Lines flight to Jakarta via Singapore.

This particularly tortuous way of traveling to get to an ASEAN country poses a big challenge to ASEAN member-countries that in the last Summit in Cebu in January once again vowed to ease travel within ASEAN to push the long-delayed and -desired ASEAN integration. It, however, would be most difficult to achieve integration similar to that achieved by Europe, if airline schedules are structured in such a way that it takes longer to travel, say from Jakarta to Yangoon, Myanmar than from Manila to Sydney.

A speaker in the seventh annual meeting of the ASEAN Graduate Business Economics Program (AGBEP) in UI remarked that it took him nine hours to get to Yangoon from Jakarta. In contrast a colleague of the AGBEP speaker who left Jakarta for Frankfurt three or four hours ahead of him texted he was checking in at his hotel in the German city as the AGBEP speaker was still on his way from the Yangoon airport to his hotel.

Waiting for three hours at the Hong Kong airport was not however without its saving grace. The stop over brought us closer to Beijing, host of the 2008 summer Olympics and enabled us to learn what the print media, which monitors the Games rather closely, has to say about preparations for the quadrennial Games.

Closer to home, former Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Perry Mequi expresses his disagreement with the move to amend the PSC charter so that "the five members of the PSC Executive Board (the chairman and the four commissioners) come from recomendees of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC)." According to Mequi, POC president Jose Cojuangco’s main reason for proposing the amendment is for the sports community to "be assured of harmonious relations between the two most important organizations in sports."

Mequi disagrees with the proposal on two grounds: First, elite sports is governed by international law and is essentially a private sector activity. Second, the PSC provides funds to the national sports associations (NSAs) that belong to the umbrella group, the POC. To have the PSC top officials come from recomendees of the POC would create conflicts of interest and result in the loss of check and balance since the PSC evaluates proposals coming from the NSAs.

My own take is that the PSC is supposed to be an overall policy-making body for sports, including mass based sports. To limit recomendees from the elite sports is to deprive low-profile but integral parts of the sports pyramid vital representation in government’s highest policy making body for sports. It must be emphasized that performance in elite sports is largely dependent on a dynamic grass roots, multi sector sports and physical fitness program that starts at the physical education level and school sports/sports for out-of-school youth.

I would suggest that the POC be allowed to submit a number of names for chairman and for one slot representing elite sports. Other sectors shall also be allowed to nominate several names for chairman and for the three remaining non-elite sports slot in the Board. It must also be emphasized that the PSC chairman’s recommendations with respect to membership in the PSC board be given due consideration to allow the chairman the opportunity to form his/her own team. It is important that this collegial body function as a team that has common objectives.