PSC chief not claiming credit, pushes for better PSI

The Philippine Sports Commission under chairman Butch Ramirez is not laying claim on the Philippine Sports Institute as its “original project” but added it believes in the need to resurrect the PSI to make it “truly an efficient institution and arm of the PSC.”

“We never claimed that PSI is our original project,” said Ramirez in reaction to a column written by Philip Ella Juico in The STAR yesterday. Juico was the former chairman of the PSC behind the launching of the Philippine National Institute of Sports in 1996.

Then President Fidel V. Ramos directed Juico to establish the Institute which was called Philsports, and which took off with the inauguration of the Philsports Complex in 1996.

The Institute was established for the purpose of ensuring that all sports personnel will be armed with appropriate qualifications and training in talent identification, training and conditioning, management, leadership and first aid. Classes were offered.

This is basically the same purpose which the PSI will undertake under Ramirez’ leadership once it “launches” the Institute on Dec. 10 at Philsports.

But Juico said, “What is there to launch when we already launched it in 1996?”

The PSC tried to clarify the matter yesterday.

“We recognize that Mr. Juico is the original initiator of the PSI and we’re not trying to take the credit away from him. Dec. 10 is not the launching of the PSI but the launching of its new programs,” said Prof. Henry Daut, now with the PSI.

“We are not launching the same building here. We only believe that there’s a need to expand the role of the PSI. Again, the PSI is not the creation of chairman Butch Ramirez. It’s just being resurrected,” he added.

“The present PSC administration is not going to take the credit for having initiated the idea of the Institute. (We) have only one thing in mind: to give the Filipino sportsmen and sportswomen an opportunity to excel in sports through the Institute,” Ramirez said.