The Philippine Online Chronicles

Outgoing chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Harry Angping has already tendered his resignation effective last June 30, but President Noynoy Aquino has yet to appoint a replacement as of posting time. Philippine Team athletes and coaches of different sports recognized by the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) are anxiously waiting, yet hopeful at the same time, on who will finally assume the top post of the government sports agency. The PSC claims the final discretion to choose who among the elite athletes and coaches it will subsidize and support in various capacities.

The athletes and coaches who feel that they were “unjustly purged” from the PSC payroll during the now-extended leadership of Angping, notwithstanding the recommendation of their mother National Sports Associations (NSAs), are hoping that they will be reinstated by a new and more sympathetic PSC chairman.

According to an athlete of an Olympic combative sport who asked not to be identified, “We were victims of the PSC-RPAC (Rationalization Plan for Athletes and Coaches). Chairman Angping said that we didn’t pass the standards, that we are not potential medalists for the 2010 Asian Games this November based on our performance in last December’s 25^th Southeast Asian Games and other international competitions. He said that since our most important sport event this year is the Asian Games, then the PSC will subsidize only Asian caliber athletes. Only by next year will athletes of Southeast Asian caliber “only” will receive subsidies, as the SEA Games will be held last quarter of 2011. This goes against the principle of long-term training and the support that goes with it for our athletes, which he (Angping) also claims to believe in.”

The Muay National Team’s monthly allowances have also been suspended since January of this year, as muay is not a featured sport of the 2010 Asiad.

The athlete-source nevertheless admits that Angping is generously supportive of athletes and programs of NSAs whose officials he allegedly favors. Class A and class B athletes of the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (ABAP) and the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation (PDBF) reportedly receive “consistent and higher than average” allowances. Undeniably, these are two of the country’s top performing NSAs when it comes to their athletes’ performances in international competitions. That their class B athletes receive allowances while the class A athletes of other sports are deprived, is what our source finds rather questionable. “There is definitely discrimination,” he rues.

Angping’s reputation of being "discriminatory" was bolstered in the Philippine Daily Inquirer column of Rina Jimenez-David last July 6, 2010. In that opinion column she shared Adeline Dumapong’s harrowing experience with Angping. Dumapong, a multi-awarded wheelchair-bound athlete of powerlifting, narrated that she was humiliated by Angping in public after making her wait for more than two hours following the appointed time at the PSC Administration Building lobby, when she sought his audience to hear her request for financial support for the impending International Paralympic Committee Athlete Leadership Summit in Bonn, Germany. The athlete wrote that Angping loudly berated her, saying that differently-abled athletes "should go to the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development)” instead of the PSC for financial and other kinds of support.

Recently, reports abound that the new favorite to replace Angping at the helm of the PSC is its former commissioner Ritchie Garcia. Two national team coaches, who unlike our athlete-source still belong in the PSC payroll but also requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, are not too excited about the prospect. They say that “it was actually ex Commissioner Garcia during the term of former PSC Chairman Eric Buhain who started this “no performance – no allowance” policy. One problem with this policy, especially with its strict application, is it prejudices relatively new athletes with great potential who of course lack previous performances in international competitions to show. Another is that a non-performing athlete in a previous international competition may reach peak form in latter competitions. Long-term athletic development is not simple, and our national athletes need all the government support they can get.”

The PSC, on the other hand, has to contend with the persistent problem of national athletes and coaches who stay on because of favoritism by their respective NSA officials, when there are others more deserving of PSC support based on performance and potential. The PSC is also strained by NSAs which are largely dependent on it for funding their sport programs, which may be due to such NSAs’ inefficiency and lack of initiative in generating their own funds, among other factors.

Meanwhile, majority of the country’s elite athletes and coaches are waiting and waiting and…waiting. And each passing day that ends without an official appointment from Malacaňang confirms further that in the wider field of Philippine realities, they are the less significant players.