No compromise to principles

The commendation that the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) recently gave to its Election Committee, led by former Philippine Volleyball Federation (previously Philippine Amateur Volleyball Association or PAVA) president Victorico (Concoy) Chaves, was a testament to the integrity and no-nonsense approach to principles of the three-term Congressman from the second district of Misamis Oriental.

Chaves, 80, wouldn’t bend to pressure from any quarter and made sure the POC elections last November went through without a hitch.  Despite a threat of a nuisance TRO, Chaves said he was ready to go to jail because the elections would proceed no matter what. The two members of his Election Committee – Ateneo sports director Ricky Palou and La Salle vice chancellor Br. Bernie Oca – were prepared to be imprisoned, too. When POC president Jose Cojuangco, Jr. heard that the Election Committee would make a determined stand against any intervention, he also declared he would be ready to join Chaves, Palou and Oca in prison for defying the court order which, as it turned out, never came.

The commendation, in part, cited the Election Committee for “its gallant efforts and steadfast commitment to ensure that the elections would reflect the mandate … its timely intervention to stop cheating and various efforts to frustrate the will of the NSAs … (and) its rejection of various internal and external pressures, leading to clean and credible elections.”

Throughout his professional career, Chaves has been known as a stickler for principles, crusader of justice and No. 1 fighter against corruption. That’s why during the recent POC elections, he wouldn’t budge when asked to withhold the name of the candidate confirmed to have offered bribe money to a voter. “It wouldn’t be fair to announce such a thing happened without naming names because then, every candidate would be a suspect,” said Chaves. So he bit the bullet, braved the tense atmosphere and gave the go-signal for Br. Oca to make the disclosure before the balloting started. 

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It was no surprise that Chaves acted the way he did. He’s been consistent in upholding what is right from his first day in public service. That reputation led to his election to three consecutive terms as Congressman in 11 straight years from 1987 to 1998. When he was offered to run for Senator in 1992, Chaves turned it down because the position wasn’t relevant to his primary goal of serving the constituents of the 13 municipalities and one city in his district. There was still a lot of work to be done in the district that was closest to this heart and he wouldn’t sacrifice his mission for a position in the Senate. In his three terms, Chaves attended to the needs of his constituents, spending weekends even in far-flung barangays with wife Teena to address the problems of the availability of potable water, power, food, education and commerce.

“I was being offered a budget of over P100 Million to run for Senator by my political party, all I had to do was to accept the nomination but I was committed to my district,” said Chaves whose reputation as a clean politician remains intact to this day. Chaves was once vice president of the LDP party where Neptali Gonzales, Sr. was chairman, Ramon Mitra was president and Cojuangco was secretary-general.

Chaves is particularly pleased that women’s volleyball today is drawing huge crowds, crediting the Shakey’s V-League for promoting the sport. It will be recalled that Chaves served 10 years as PAVA president up to 1995. 

“Our women’s volleyball team was virtually unbeatable at the Southeast Asian Games when I was PAVA president,” he said. “I remember staying only three days in Seoul for the Olympics in 1988 because I had to fly to Cebu and recruit a 6-3 player for our women’s team. We brought the player to Manila and she became a mainstay in our national team. That’s how dedicated we were. In 1995, I asked President Ramos for a P6 Million budget to host a leg of the  World Grand Prix for women’s volleyball and it was given by the PSC through chairman Mel Lopez. That opened everyone’s eyes to the potential of volleyball as a spectator sport.”

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The Grand Prix brought in the national teams of Peru, Netherlands, South Korea and US and the eight-day tournament drew mammoth crowds at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium. “I was hoping that since we got P6 Million from the government, we could build a kitty to develop our national team from ticket sales which I expected to be at least P1 Million,” he said. “I wanted the ticket prices to be affordable, P10 for general admission and P100 for the most expensive seats. I wanted the prices to be like the ticket prices for a movie. Thousands of fans watched the games. But when we made an accounting later, nobody could come up with the proceeds from the ticket sales. I couldn’t believe the men whom I entrusted to organize the event would be so corrupt. Even the hotel rooms of two foreign guests, international president Ruben Acosta (of Mexico) and Asian president Yasutaka Matsudaira (of Japan), were left unpaid even though we had provisions from the P6 Million budget and I had to personally settle those bills.”

Chaves, a principal author of the law that created the PSC in 1990, said the final nail on the coffin was when he gave allowances from his own pocket of $20 a day to 24 players of the  national junior boys and girls teams for a one-week trip to Thailand only to find out that certain officials skimmed from the top to give reduced amounts to the players. Even what Chaves allocated for food allowance was pocketed by unscrupulous team officials. Chaves could’ve purged the ranks of scalawags but his priorities as a Congressman took precedence. He resigned from the PAVA in a telling message that he would never countenance corruption and exploitation of athletes.  More than his achievements as PAVA president, his commitment to integrity was Chaves’ legacy to sports.