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Does Senate President Manuel Villar have competent and knowledgeable
advisers or not?
A politician who puts himself in the ring for
the highest office of the land enters a zone where all his actions
and decisions must bear the weight of scrutiny. The media, the
public and his rivals for the presidency will look at everything he
does from every angle.
Senate President Manuel Villar is one such
politician who has entered the zone. And it looks like he failed a
test of sensitivity, probity and acuity last week.
The Senate President brought on a firestorm on
himself for sponsoring the Villar Cup, a self-serving local
billiards tournament in Muntinlupa that directly coincides in dates
with an ongoing international tournament in Mandaluyong City. The
latter is internationally sanctioned. It features a bundle of
foreign players from Japan, the US, Canada, France, Germany, England
and Chinese Taipei. Villar’s event is purely local.
Whatever he hoped to gain from his Villar Cup,
he will be in no position to get it. Instead he has reaped a ton of
bad publicity. Many columnists and journalists in all three media
have blasted him for his insensitivity and carelessness. He cannot
explain why, of the 366 days during this leap year, he had to bump
his precious cup against the six days reserved since February for
the Philippine Pool Tour. This cannot be a coincidence.
He has waded into a row between the Billiards
and Snooker Congress of the Philippines (BSCP), the governing body
of billiard sports in the country and a member of the Philippine
Olympic Committee, and a newly formed group called the Billiards
Managers and Players Association of the Philippines. He is free to
take sides in this row, of course, but what puzzles us is why
Senator Villar and his handlers never bothered to investigate the
situation.
All they saw apparently was a campaign gimmick
and a publicity opportunity.
But we suspect it is much, much more. It was an
effort to undermine the BSCP’s tournament—and the BSCP itself.
Deep and grave issues concerning sports are
involved. They touch upon the independence of national sports
associations from government interference. They involve the attempt
of one group to take over the governance of the billiard sports in
the country. They involve questionable actions by the Games and
Amusement Board using a martial law decree dating back to 1976,
which already has provoked the Senate to call for a committee
inquiry.
Senator Villar has waded into this one with
little thought and only a smile on his face.
Moreover, the senator has put himself in
collision against Mayor Benhur Abalos of Mandaluyong, who just
happens to be the president of the League of City Mayors of the
Philippines. The mayor and his fellow members in the league are
understandably incensed by the turn of events. After all, the
BSCP’s Mandaluyong Mayor’s Cup (which ended
yesterday) is the inaugural event of the Philippine Pool Tour (PPT).
The PPT has been dubbed “A Pool Journey
Through the Archipelago” because it is a series of international
pool tournaments staged in strategic cities all over the
Philippines.
In 2008, besides Mandaluyong, there will be
tournaments in Puerto Princesa, Cebu City, Davao City,Clark-Angeles
City and Manila. The project is recognized as a tourism promotion
activity.
However you look at this, it looks like bad
politics—subtracting instead of adding to one’s political
capital.
The judgment and sensitivity of the Senate
President are at issue here. For someone so calculating in his
actions in both houses of Congress, he has displayed poor judgment
here. He entered the fray unknowing, and then picked the wrong side.
And he can also be called down for insensitivity because it never
occurred to him to consider the feelings of many people in our
billiards community.
It never occurred to him to even ask if his
Villar Cup would make him a spoilsport—instead of a sports-page
hero.
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