Sports and politics have long been at odds. For some reason, they can’t seem to get enough of each other.
This topic is frequently in the news worldwide and we in the Philippines are no different. In her time, President Gloria Arroyo was reported to be sad over the politics in the Philippine Sports Commission. President Benigno Aquino was also reported to promise to get rid of politics in the national sports organizations. Of course, we know now that nothing has come out of those statements.
Either sports leaders turn into politicians or politicians want to dip their dirty hands into sports.
The latter is what happened lately in the selection of the venue for the Palarong Pambansa. The Palaro, the biggest annual sporting event in the country, is an activity of the Department of Education. The task of selecting the venue lies with the Palaro Committee, composed of regional directors and other top officials of the Department of Education, and this is chaired by the Secretary of Education.
The DepEd Secretary, Leonor M. Briones, is from our province so she inhibited out of delicadeza. But even without exerting any influence, Negros Oriental came out as the choice of most, if not all, of the members of the Palaro Committee.
This didn’t really come as a surprise. There were very good reasons why the Palaro Committee wanted to hold the Palaro in Negros Oriental. Among others, we already have the facilities to host the said event. We can also accommodate all the participants of the Palaro. This is something the Province of Antique does not have.
Things were going smoothly until two senators wrote the DepEd Secretary and the members of the Palaro Committee endorsing the bid of the Province of Antique.
The intervening senators are not members of the Palaro Committee but they are members of very powerful committees in the Senate. The members of the Palaro Committee were reported to have received phone calls from one of the senators threatening the DepEd if they didn’t relent to the senator’s wishes.
We’ve seen many places which were chosen to be hosts of previous Palaros. They were not ready to host the games but they were forced to do so. The structures that were hurriedly put in place to enable them to host the Palaro are now white elephants. Nobody is putting these facilities to good use because these places do not have an active and effective sports program in place.
Putting up instant structures in order to host the Palarong Pambansa will only be a waste of resources.
But such is politics in this country. Many times, we get the kind of leaders we do not deserve.
