The Political Spate of Philippine Sports

Friday, 15 July 2011 01:40

Written by Aaron Benedict De Leon

Lately, we’ve seen the resurgence of the Philippine Azkals in the Asian Football scene, since last year, as it has gone out and proven that Filipino’s can compete with its Asian counterparts in football. We’ve gone out to beat countries like former AFC Suzuki Cup champion Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, and recently Bangladesh in the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers. But many experts point out to 2004 as the beginning of the rise of the Philippine Azkals. It took them six years, six years to get noticed and be finally in the public’s eye of attention.

Yes, the future is looking bright for Philippine Football. But for many other sports and their respective programs, the future is bleak and uncertain.

Perhaps due to the floundering economy and the more pressing issues on governance, sports has taken a backseat as far as our priorities is concerned. Though we have produced world class athletes in the field of Boxing and Billiards, many of our national and even local athletes are still wanting of assistance from our government.

What makes it worse is that our various sports commissions in specific programs have become highly politicized to a point that the morale of our athletes has been affected.

Young people are still attracted by sports, even until today. Evidence of that is the continuous popularity of the NCAA and UAAP. Rivalries existing between schools make the whole atmosphere exciting and attractive to sports and even non-sports aficionados.

But once the players and athletes graduate, and it is their time to join the professional ranks, those are crossroads in their life where they realize that the game is not about passion anymore, nor about winning. It’s about self-interests, after all. Our professional and National athletes suffer and eventually lose focus and motivation in continuing their respective sports careers.

It’s been a decade long program, and I still don’t understand the bureaucracy existing within Philippine Sports. You have the Philippine Sports Commission, the Philippine Olympic Committee and all other various government agencies to handle sports programs in the country. But what’s the point of having so many agencies, if the functions of these can be subsumed into one department?

What am I saying? No one agency in government is absolved in corruption, and if this is what it takes to get the money where it rightfully belongs, then we should move in the direction towards passing centralization of their functions into super sports body agency, through legislation.

We cannot abuse the generosity of private companies, because at the end of the day, the question of sustainability, once there is no more business interest in that endeavor, would always surface.

Also, the appointment of leaders of various sports program agencies should be done with the consensus of athletes and their coaches, and not only based on the interest of internal stakeholders.

At the end of the day, what’s important is the athletes, and that the system can facilitate an environment where government can effectively provide whatever they need in order to deliver for our country.

There is so much talent in the country that has been wasted by endless politicking amongst various sports agency leaders. But there is still time, and hope, as what the Azkals have proven in the last 6 years.

With the right amount of support, with the proper training and with capable and competent managers and coaches, we might not be far away from our First Olympic Gold medal.