Well, bureaucracy is still alive in Philippines sports.
Nothing has changed, and again, a bloated delegation was sent to the 2017 South East Asian Games held from Aug. 19- 30.
As I had stated in this column in June, I was hoping I would be proven wrong in my assessment of how the Philippines would perform in the games.
Almost 500 athletes and 200 officials from the Philippines were sent to the games. Definitely, many went for a free trip at taxpayers’ expense. What a shame!
And I wonder why the well-meaning advice of Sports Commissioner Ramon Fernandez to send only deserving athletes not heeded.
It was the worst performance that the Philippines has done in the last 18 years. Of the total 406 available gold medals in the SEA Games, the Philippines only won 24.
Delegation officials predicted that the Philippine contingent would garner at least 50 gold medals.
Two years ago, the Philippine team won 29 gold medals, and placed 6th among 11 nations in South East Asia.
Malaysia topped all countries with 145 golds, doubling that of 2nd placer Thailand, and moving up from the previous games in Singapore where they captured 4th place. Vietnam and Singapore battled it out for 3rd spot, with Vietnam taking one gold more than Singapore.
For the Philippines, most of the gold medals were won by the Athletic team with five, and five other sports taking two golds.
Over all, Athletics captured the most of the three medals available with 18.
Far behind was Taekwondo with nine.
So let’s dig deeper into the statistics of these games.
Malaysia has a population of only 30 million, much less than that of the Philippines, yet they were able to drastically move up to the top spot.
To make matters worse, Singapore has a population of only 5.6 million people, and they placed ahead of the Philippines.
Vietnam must have made a dramatic recovery from a recent war, and took 3rd place.
The two countries with the largest populations did the worst: Indonesia has 260 million people and placed 5th. The Philippines with over 100 million people took 6th place.
The Philippines has such a large population, and yet very little grassroots sports development for the youth.
Another problem is that the Department of Education has failed to address the lack of competition for 12th grade athletes.
With the implementation of the K-12 education program, most 12th graders are unable to compete. Only one year was taken into account when the program was started. So most 11th graders can compete but not the seniors.
If they should realize, the late teen years and the early 20s are critical for the development of quality athletes.
So how is this so? For the next Palarong Pambansa in 2018, the cutoff year for elementary is 2005, and high school 2000. If you follow a Grade 6 pupil through senior high school, you will find that he will not be able to compete as a 12th grader.
I have canvassed some Grade 6 classes and a vast majority were born in 2005.
I emailed the DepEd regarding this matter on July 31, and received a response over three weeks later that they would respond to my query. Guess what? Yep, ‘til now, no answer from another bureaucratic office.
High school students have been mandated to take an additional two years of school, but were given no opportunity to compete as 12th graders. Many will probably just give up and not compete in sports anymore.
Well, where do we go from here? If there are no drastic changes made, not much of an improvement can be expected in the next SEA Games which, by the way, will probably be held here in the Philippines.
In one article (Camille Naredo/ABS-CBN News), Malaysia’s chef-de-mission had a game plan. Scouts were sent all over the country in search for the best athletes. National teams were sent abroad to train. Foreign coaches were also hired to handle the athletes.
Thus, if the Philippines hopes to improve at the next SEA Games, the time to act is now.
So will change happen?
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Author’s email: [email protected]
