MANILA, Philippines -- Note: It’s the week after the 2012 London Olympics and, after another dismal failure by the Philippine delegation to win the country’s first Olympic gold medal, there came this interesting dialogue inside a classroom at the National Sports Institute that was established by the Philippine Sports Commission under chair William Ramirez. Please share the following excerpts:

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Professor: Good day class. Before we go to our subject, the hunt for RP’s Olympic gold medal, please state what you think went wrong with the national delegation to the London Games?

Student No. 1: Nothing went right, sir.

Prof: You mean everything went wrong for the Philippines in the London Olympics?

Student No. 2: Of course, sir. If ever anything went right there, we would be dancing in the streets right now.

Student No. 1: He’s right, sir. But excuse me, according to my uncle we failed again because we did not have the luck of the draw.

Prof: Who’s your uncle?

Student No. 1: He’s a former congressman from Negros.

Prof: What’s his name?

Student No.1: He was a one-time winner of the “Tawag ng Tanghalan” singing contest who went on to sing his way through the political arena, all the way to the corridors of Malacañang.

Prof: What’s his name, please?

Student No. 1: He was a regular member of the entourage whenever President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would go abroad.

Prof: Sounds familiar. What has he got to do with RP sports?

Student No. 1: A lot sir, most of them bad.

Prof: What do you mean ‘bad’? I thought he was close to Malacañang?

Student No. 1: Yes, in fact, sir, after my uncle served as chief of mission to the 2007 Southeast Asian Games, where RP registered its worst finish, he was readily rewarded.

Prof: How much? Did the Big Boy allow him to taste part of his dollar hoard abroad?

Student No. 2: Excuse me, again. If I remember right, this former congressman was immediately named chief of mission to the Beijing Olympics.

Prof: So what was wrong with that?

Student No. 2: That, exactly, was the main fault with our sports system. Our leaders, together with private sponsors, continue to reward and encourage mediocrity.

Prof: You have a point there. OK, before we tackle our main subject, please research for our next subject -- the other faults that led to the continued failure of the Philippines to win its first Olympic gold medal. What solutions would you suggest?

End of dialogue.

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That’s it. As would be rediscovered later by the class at the National Sports Institute, the biggest evil that hobbled down RP sports was the absence of competent, properly trained sports leaders. There was a dismal dearth of proper, knowledgeable people who could chart the right direction for Philippine sports. Majority of the so-called sports leaders were political appointees who got their sensitive posts from grateful figures who controlled and decided appointments in the national government.

If there ever was a semblance of a national sports development program, it was mostly to each his own, decided and greatly influenced by the whims of dumb, self-serving decision-makers.

There was no systematized, centralized sports development program.

But what distinctly surfaced was the grave fault of the powers-that-be who also tried to style themselves as sports development czars, in the process propagating a limp, losing system.

There, for example, was the presidential directive to again get Cuban coaches for the national boxers, while altogether overlooking the sickening fact that the main fault was in the myopic selection of fighters, whose incapacities were impossible, terribly too late, for even the great Cuban trainers to correct.

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For the Beijing Olympics alone, alibis again came aplenty, much ahead of the predictable failure.

After the disastrous bid to qualify a single boxer to Beijing from the 2008 Bangkok Olympic Qualifying tournament, Malacañang again bent back and listened to what these failed leaders had to explain.

What came later was a mouthful of adjustable alibis.

If they failed in Beijing, could the London Olympics be far behind?

Of course, other than a blind national leadership, there would always be gullible sponsors to exploit.

At least, with the establishment of the National Sports Institute, designed to produce competent sports development programmers, the country’s top leaders may finally realize that winning a first Olympic gold medal cannot and will never serve as a cure-all.

Only a sound, strict, selfless, semi-socialized sports development program, one that doesn’t depend on political patronage and the shallow sponsorship of mediocrity, will help the sick RP sports rise from the floor.

End of lecture.