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The Beijing Olympics ends today. The closing ceremonies will surely
be as impressive as the opening, which will live in the memory of
the billions who have gone to Beijing and watched the Games on TV
forever.
Once again: Congratulations, Beijing.
Congratulations, too, Filipino athletes
Our athletes also deserve to be congratulated.
Winning medals is not the only point of the Games. In fact,
tradition and the Olympics Code stress that it is not even an
important point. Our athletes should be hailed because they all
tried their best and played according to the best standards of the
Olympic spirit of sportsmanship.
The 15-member Philippine delegation will come
home sad for failing to end our country’s 12-year Olympic medal
drought. We have been participants in the Games for 84 years and
have not won a single gold medal.
But there are consolations and a source of hope
for future triumphs.
One is that we won a gold—in wushu. But the
wushu competition is yet to be made an official event. We have also
won in earlier Olympics another gold (for bowling) and a bronze (for
tae kwon do) but these were also exhibition events.
Another consolation: We have won 9 Olympic
medals. We are at the top of the 38 countries that have won medals
but not the gold. There are 96 countries that have faithfully
participated in all the Olympics but don’t have a single bronze or
silver to their names.
In this year’s Olympics, we lagged behind 5 of
our fellow Asean countries. Indonesia won a gold, a silver and 3
bronzes. Thailand bagged a gold. Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam
each won a silver.
The hopes of the entire 90 million Filipinos
fell when boxer Harry Tanamor and jins Tshomlee Go and Antoinette
Rivero, the country’s best medal hopes, dropped their opening
bouts in the Olympic Games. Before they took their turn to fight,
Philippine sports officials and their coaches said they had a good
chance of taking home the gold.
They took the chance and fought as best they
could. Unfortunately, their best was not good enough.
What this tells us is that the people
responsible for the development of our country’s competitiveness
in international sports must do much more, must work more
effectively, to make world champions of our athletes.
That is a tall order—especially for
basketball. They way our public and private sports leaders are
running this department of life leaves much to be desired.
The question of money
And there’s the question of money. Training
athletes for years and years to make them as good and better than
those of other countries is expensive. The government, along with
the sports officials, need to realize that we are not spending
enough for sports development in our country.
The government and the private sector pledged a
cash incentive amounting to P15 million for any athlete who could
bring home the country’s first gold medal. Chinese media reported
the Philippine cash pot ranked fifth among the countries that
offered cash rewards to their citizens for an Olympic gold.
Boxing hero Manny Pacquiao, Tycoon Lucio Tan,
Construction magnate Reghis Romero 2nd and his son Mikee Romero,
Microsoft and sports-apparel giant No Fear each pledged a reward of
P1 million for the athlete who would win our country’s first gold.
The Philippine Sportswriters Association, with Brickroad Gym and
Aspen Spa, further sweetened the pot by adding P500,000.
On top of the P5 million guaranteed to an
Olympic gold medalist under the Athletes and Coaches Incentive Act
(RA 9064), President Gloria Arroyo added another P4.5 million to the
pot before the Olympic-bound athletes left for Beijing.
While President Arroyo said the gold medal was
“priceless” and that it “goes far beyond the value of any
reward,” she and most Filipinos hoped the cash reward would
motivate the athletes to perform better in the Games. The cash
incentive might have served its purpose of driving our athletes to
try harder than they would otherwise have done. But they suffered
defeat just the same.
Now, what will happen to this treasure chest of
pledges?
We urge the philanthropists who made the offers
not to keep their money in reserve to form a cash pot for the 2012
Olympic Games in London.
These generous persons and corporations made
their offers and pledges to promote excellence in Philippine sports
and add a stronger motive to the athletes’ drive to seek the gold
medal.
Donate to sports development
Why not donate the money to the best institution
that can be trusted to promote sports development in earnest? They
can give the fund to the Philippine Olympic Committee. Or if that
body is not acceptable, why don’t these sports-loving donors move
to reorganize Philippine sports affairs and raise more funds for
sports development and strategic planning?
The long long-term objective should be to
discover very young talent in every town and village and to train
them to become world champions.
The donors could also ensure that sports
development is finally divorced from factional politics and
personality cults. These have been the bane of sports development in
the Philippines. They must be made to disappear.
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