SEAG Fiasco Waiting to explode

If anything goes wrong when the country hosts the Southeast Asian Games barely four months from now, Philippine Sports Commission chair William Ramirez doesn’t want any part in it—because he’s answerable to President Arroyo if something does.

That’s why Ramirez will try to head off a looming Games disaster by inviting officials of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee (Philsoc) and the Philippine Olympic Committee to a meeting today to shed light on the real situation—at least financially—in the country’s third hosting of the biennial event from November 27 to December 5.

Like many in the local sports community, Ramirez isn’t convinced that Philsoc has the P700 million it claimed it has raised from private sponsors to foot the bill for the 23rd edition of the sportsfest.

The most recent proof if this is the promise of Rep. Monico Puentevella of Bacolod that he would personally ask his colleagues in Congress to contribute a portion of their pork barrel funds to the SEA Games war chest, hoping to raise up to P150 million. Which begs the question: If the money is available, why ask for more?

Meanwhile Ramirez admits to being out of the Philsoc loop, despite the fact that he was the body’s former deputy secretary-general. He slid out of the post when an apparent rivalry between Philsoc chair Obet Pagdanganan and POC president Peping Cojuangco surfaced some months ago—which still exists despite both men’s denials, according to some sports leaders who say the two are not even on speaking terms.

To say that the country’s Games organization is disjointed is an understatement. One only needs to look into the recent contrasting statements of Philsoc secretary-general Steve Hontiveros and Pagdanganan on our readiness to host the meet—one says we’re three months behind schedule, the other says we’ll be 99-percent ready by October—to see that no one person is calling the shots for the organizing committee.

Besides not knowing who to talk to about the real progress of the country’s hosting preparations, Ramirez is also concerned about the seeming absence of a fixed timeline for the Games buildup. The only thing Ramirez is certain about is the training of the national teams that will compete in the SEAG, because that’s the only thing he can see with the government agency’s responsibilities to the national athletes. He can only speculate on the rest of the preparations.

Puentevella’s moves add to the PSC chair’s uncertainties because they cast doubt on the statements made by Pagdanganan and Philsoc marketing head Pete Cura that the organizers are on track as far as funding is concerned. Obet merely repeated what he said before, that sponsorships from private companies are in the bag, while in some news reports, Cura said Philsoc’s marketing targets and goals are being met according to schedule—but he could not give the details of their advertising and marketing strategies.

The lack of concrete evidence that we are ready to host the Games, apart from a handful of billboards and banners along the highways in the metropolis, is actually causing panic among those who do not want the country to flame out as hosts—and that includes Ramirez.

Although Pagdanganan is also a government official, being the chair of the Philippine International Trading Corp., the blame for a dreadful Games hosting will fall mostly on the shoulders of Ramirez, who keeps emphasizing that he is ultimately accountable to the President for any blunder the Philsoc—in essence, a private organization—might commit.

And to think that exactly a year ago, then-PSC chair Eric Buhain was thanking the Philsoc and the POC—still headed by Celso Dayrit—for their “cooperation and show of solidarity with the government.”

But Buhain and Dayrit are both out of the scene, so it’s up to Ramirez to talk to the people at Philsoc and figure out how to defuse a bomb that’s waiting to explode