INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines - Twenty gold medals or less.

With barely five months to go before the games, the Philippine Sports Commission has punched the panic button, alarmed that inevitable disaster awaits the national team in the coming Southeast Asian Games in Laos.

PSC chair Harry Angping predicted a historic-low of 15 to 20 golds medals for the country in the 11-nation meet on Dec. 9-18 based on statistics meticulously studied by the government sports agency.

That's about 60 percent less of the 44 golds Team Philippines captured for a fifth-place finish
during the 2007 edition held in Thailand and half of Olympic chief Jose "Peping'' Cojuangco Jr.'s disturbing forecast of 30 to 35 gold medals.

Angping's alarming prophesy are solidly backed by comparative studies on the performance of the national athletes in the 2005 games hosted by the country, the 2007 biennial meet and their present output during recent test competitions.

The Laos meet offers 383 gold medals in 25 disciplines. So far, the POC has named the 42 gold medalists and 91 silver-medal winners in 2007 as the top candidates for the composition of the national contingent in the games.

Most of these medalists, however, have been experiencing a dip in performance according to the statistics presented by the PSC culled from previous records in the Internet.

"Are we going to send all these nominations knowing very well that we have a little chance of winning gold medals?'' said Angping, who has earmarked P30 million for the country's participation in the SEAG.

"The PSC is consistent that we are only going to send athletes with gold-winning potentials,'' added Angping.

The PSC czar said the dissent between the sports agency and the POC and the leadership crisis within several NSAs hamper the preparation of national team to accomplish a respectable finish.

"Let's forget about partisan politics. Let's work together and the work has to start today,'' said Angping.

"I don't want to come home after the SEA Games blaming each other,'' added Angping.

Asked to submit a tentative lineup, six out of the 23 national sports associations included in Laos have yet to furnish the PSC a roster of their athletes from diving, karatedo, cycling, fin swimming, petanque and wushu.

"We should at least work to get more medals before it's too late. But some of the NSAs are not cooperating with us. That's the sad part,'' said Angping.

This early, the PSC already came with the designs of the track suit and training uniforms of the athletes for the SEAG. The track suit bears the country's colors with yellow being the dominant color.

"Yellow represents the rays of the sun. It also represents hope for a brighter future,'' said Angping.

The PSC chief said he would sit down with the 23 NSAs included as soon as practical and discuss the reality of the country's chances in the games.