Congressman against token delegation to SEA Games

MANILA, Philippines - Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo expressed concern yesterday over the reported plan to send a lean delegation to the 27th Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar in December, but said it should still be supported by the public because of the reluctance of the host country to reinstate the Olympic sports, which it has scrapped in favor of non-Olympic and indigenous games.

Castelo said he fully understood the stand taken by key sports leaders like Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. and Philippine Sports Commission chair Ricardo Garcia to reduce drastically the number of athletes it would send to Myanmar.

“It would not exactly look that we are to reduce the number of athletes, who would compete under the Philippine flag in Myanmar, but the international sports community has to fully understand that we are taking the issue seriously,” Castelo said in a statement.

Myanmar, the host country, has earlier made public its plan to scrap Olympic sports like tennis and gymnastics, but adds non-Olympic and indigenous games, in which other Southeast Asian nations have little or no skills and athletes to participate.

Although Myanmar has earlier claimed it has little or no facilities for the scrapped games, it was being accused by other nations of skewing other sports disciplines to raise its potential medal tally.

The lawmaker said he agreed to Cojuangco’s proposal to limit to 50 athletes the country’s sports delegation in the Dec. 11-22 biennial meet in Myanmar, but disagreed to the proposal to send only a token delegation.

“By all means, let’s send athletes who will only compete in Olympic sports, but we should not be sending a token delegation,” Castelo said.

“The country won’t look good if we will send a token delegation,” he said, adding a 50-athlete delegation would mean tremendous savings, which could be used for other sports-related projects.