Decisions, decisions

One challenge that is constantly assailing the Philippine Sports Commission is that the work never stops, and every time a new board member is appointed, they have to literally hit the ground running. There is very little time to be brought up to speed.

A case in point is the on-going Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. The new PSC board barely had a week to learn who was going, what their chances were, and what kind of support they would need. On top of that, they were under the close scrutiny of the public to see if they would change the agency’s history of alleged corruption and keep in stride with the new administration’s policy of transparency and integrity. How do you even begin to clean a mess you did not make?

The first challenge is how to apportion that monthly budget of the agency, which is already being stretched, to say the least. Since the allowances of the athletes are being resumed (after former chair Harry Angping decided to disband all national pools at the start of each year), there will also be a large backlog to deal with. On top of that, there are constant renovations and refurbishing work needed to upgrade facilities and even the athletes’ dormitories. As I’ve said, the work never ends.

Another problem is the long list of suppliers who hold legitimate contracts with the agency who have not been fully compensated for work already done. In his first week of office, PSC chair Richie Garcia admitted to this writer that several suppliers are trying to collect on contracts that the previous board did not honor. It will take time to sift through all the information and documentation. It will take even more time to decide who gets paid first, and how many installments they will receive. There will most probably be someone who will not be satisfied with the outcome or the timetable. But the new board is doing what they can.

There are also some general policy decisions that the new PSC board will have to make. First, will they just be democractic and give all sports support? Or will they instead prioritize sports that are medal potentials in the higher levels of competition like the Olympic Games and Asian Games? Once again, there will be a chicken and egg situation. Some sports will complain that they will never reap international success unless they get big backing. Others will want to maintain whatever largesse they have for fear of losing their stature in their sport in the eyes of the world body.

If they decide to prioritize certain sports, what criteria will they use? Again, everybody will have an opinion on the matter. A couple of examples would be rugby and lawn bowls. In the last five years, rugby has climbed up the rankings in Asia. The Philippine Rugby Union started out at the bottom, level 5 of the Asian Five Nations (A5N) Rugby Union tournament. Now, they have cracked the top level. Will they get rewarded for this by a heftier backing from the PSC?

Lawn bowls, for its part, has won over 100 gold medals at the Asian level, the most of any sport. In 2007, they won 12 golds at the Asian championships. In 2008, the number went up to 17. In 2009, they received no support from the PSC. Given their outstanding performance, would they not be deserving of better support? Each time they had to ask for help or liquidate expenses, officers of the association had to travel from their home base of Angeles City to the PSC offices in Manila, with no assurance that they would get anything.

Another factor that has serious impact on the PSC’s next moves is its newfound close ties with the Philippine Olympic Committee. This unity will give the agency more teeth in clamping down on national sports associations (NSAs) who belatedly have been given requests for assistance, do not liquidate the advances, or have been accused of misuse of funding allocations. At the same time, the PSC will have to be extra careful in navigating the political waters, because it stands a good chance of being accused of favoritism, particularly if the NSAs that benefit are allied with the POC leadership.

All in all, the new PSC board has a clean slate, but they don’t have time to enjoy the honeymoon. There’s just too much work to do.