|
THE Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) bared plans to make the
facilities at the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine (PCSM) at
par with those in the Southeast Asian region.
PSC chairman William Ramirez said he is closely
working with the public and private sectors to come up with
high-standard center for sports medicine for almost 1,000 members of
the national team.
“It’s time to modernize our sports medicine.
We have a lot of talented personnel and medical practitioners but
lack of major facility and proper training caused our athletes to
act on their own resulting to doping test failures,” said Ramirez
during the three-day Southeast Asia Regional Anti-doping Board
meeting at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City.
“We are asking the help of our friends in
Congress as well as the private sector in order to raise the fund
needed to establish a modernized sports medicine center,” he
added.
This year, the PCSM has a budget of P50 million
which PCSM-Doping Control Unit head Dr. Alejandro Pineda said is not
enough to meet the high demands in medical procedures set by the
World Anti-Doping Agency.
“We really need to lobby for more funding so
we can strengthen our awareness program. We should educate the
athletes, coaches, trainers and everyone involved in sports dahil
ang kakulangan sa kaalaman ang isang dahilan kung bakit nagpa-positive
sa doping test ang mga atleta,” said Pineda.
Recently, the Philippines was stripped of a
bronze medal in the 2007 Thailand SEA Games after heptathlete
Narcisa Atienza was found positive of prohibited substances.
In the 2005 Manila SEA Games, tae kwon do jin
Esther Marie Singson lost her gold medal after testing positive of
diuretics.
-- Emil Noguera
|
