POC decides fate of AIG team

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Olympic Committee executive committee will hold an emergency meeting today regarding the country’s participation in the third Asian Indoor Games set Oct. 30-Nov. 8 in Vietnam.

The meeting comes after the POC threatened to pull out the RP delegation to the AIG due to intervention from that the Philippine Sports Commission regarding the composition of the team.

The Philippines was supposed to participate in 19 sports to be represented by some 100 athletes but the PSC cut this down to only seven sports made up of 22 athletes and just eight officials.

Mark Joseph, swimming president and POC deputy secretary general, said the POC is not actually pulling the plug on the RP participation in the AIG.

“The POC will participate in the AIG but we will not participate under the PSC’s conditions of economic and political discrimination which are against the Olympic charter,” said Joseph.

“We will not associate ourselves with any government intervention. Clearly it is discriminatory for a government agency head without rhyme or reason selects sports and athletes for an Asian event,” he added.

Joseph was referring to Philippine Sports Commission chairman Harry Angping, who announced the other day it could only fund 22 athletes, since the AIG is just a “token competition.”

Angping clarified that the AIG is not part of the PSC calendar but still the government sports agency is willing to shell out P2.6 million for the event which he was part of in 2005 in Bangkok.

“I was chef de mission of the RP delegation then and we never got any funding from the PSC,” said Angping.

“That is what we will decide in tomorrow’s meeting, whether to send a token delegation or not at all,” said POC treasurer Julian Camacho in yesterday’s Scoop Forum.

Sports that will be funded by the PSC are athletics, billiards, boxing, chess, archery, muay and shuttlecock. Scratched from the original list are swimming, a compulsory sport, bowling, 3-on-3 basketball, dance sports, petanque, hoop sepak takraw, penkat silat, futsal, kickboxing, aerobics and kurash.