INQUIRER Sports

YOU’RE BOUND to lose if you bet that Peping Cojuangco will rejoin the congressional race next year.

The way he has allowed chaos to ride high in his office only showed Cojuangco, a former congressman, is not seeking public office.

The Philippine Olympic Committee, which Cojuangco heads, is in a big mess.

* * *

Of course, it won’t be right to suspect Cojuangco to be self-destructing.

The younger brother of national heroine Cory Aquino is as shrewd as seasoned politicians go.

So, even if he has no plans of running in the 2010 polls, Cojuangco can always be expected to protect his public image.

* * *

Sad to say, Peping has allowed horrible goings-on in the national Olympic hierarchy.

It has also become a mystery, both to his allies and critics, why Cojuangco just sits there while he’s being hit left and right for blunt partisanship and inaction.

The guy, you bet, is not necessarily suffering in silence.

Unfortunately, he has also allowed himself to a painful problem in Philippine sports.

* * *

The leadership issue in billiards, for one, is still stuck in the courts.

Cojuangco had allowed an arbitrary takeover by a group identified with him.

But, as it would turn out, the legal procedure he used was later ruled incorrect.

While a single leadership mess could rock the POC boat, you can no longer count with the fingers of both hands the number of squabbles besetting the national Olympic body.

Cojuangco himself has been voted out—as officially ruled by the international body—as head of the national equestrian federation, but the guy hangs tough.

* * *

At least, the duly recognized national equestrian president, Carissa Coscolluela, has proceeded to form and prepare the RP team for this year’s Southeast Asian championship in Thailand.

A POC approval, she says, is not necessary in the Southeast Asian event; although that would no longer be the case in other international meets next year.

* * *

But what takes the cake is Cojuangco’s refusal to recognize the results of the May 9 PhilCycling election, an exercise he ordered and was supervised by the POC itself.

Cojuangco said he wanted contending factions within the cycling board to first resolve their problem.

That was just fine.

However, a full week after sportsman Mikee Romero has returned from the United States and announced he would not accept the presidency being rammed in by the group opposed to the rightfully elected PhilCycling president, Cojuangco has remained still.

“I honestly believe that former national cyclist Rolando Hiso will be in the best position to run national cycling affairs,” Romero told the Inquirer last week.

Romero said he’s recognizing and honoring the election of Hiso.

* * *

Anyway, Peping’s Ate Cory last week summoned strength to decry the foul move by congressmen identified with the Arroyo administration, who passed a resolution that calls for Congress to convene into a constituent assembly (Con-Ass).

Cory Aquino called that move a “shameless abuse of power.”

Now, if Peping Cojuangco, for instance, bothers to ask for advice, it should not come as a surprise if Ate Cory tells him that his painful inaction is a dumb posture normally taken only by born villains.