MANILA, Philippines—There’s no way the Philippine Olympic Committee can aptly lay claim to Manny Pacquiao’s monumental achievements in the past year.

While the world boxing superhero richly hit the target again and again in 2008, the past year was definitely a very poor one for the POC.

It miserably missed landing the dream gold in the Beijing Olympics.

Worse, it did not even come close to landing a single bronze.

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You think the national Olympic committee will openly admit fault?

Well, what this bunch of sports leaders did instead was get themselves reelected to choice posts in the last POC polls.

It may not be a case of POC president Jose Cojuangco & Co. patting themselves on the back.

Repeat: The POC can’t be expected to openly blame itself for the Beijing debacle.

But wasn’t that warning enough that there won’t be an end to the mediocrity in the national sports set-up?

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Well, the best we poor sports devotees can do is pray that our top Olympic officials finally learned from their mistakes.

There’s always London 2012 to target.

There will always be room for reforms?

Let’s pray the situation is not totally hopeless.

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Unfortunately, there’s one outstanding case that’s bound to test the honesty of our Olympic bigwigs.

This involves the pending validation of a majority group in the Integrated Cycling Federation of the Philippines.

This group, headed by former national cyclist Rolando Hiso, held a national assembly at the Amoranto Sports Complex in Quezon City.

They elected a set of officers during the affair held last Dec. 13, as mandated in the ICFP charter.

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The POC has a case in its hands.

Another faction, which branded Hiso & Co. a breakaway group, has set its own election of officers on Jan. 16.

Anyway, the POC might have forgotten it, but this is the same set of cycling leaders responsible for the abrupt shelving of the national cycling marathon, popularly known as the Tour, from last year’s summer sports calendar.

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It’s like this. For most fans in sleepy provincial villages, summer is never complete without the Tour.

For one, a man-size hero, summer’s chosen son, regularly emerges from the world of the striving poor at the end of each festive national cycling Tour.

There were Arzala, Padilla, Sumalde, Garcia Jr., Reynante, Rivas, Sicam, to name only a few.

Yes, there was nobody from the world of the sun-baked hardy workers for the masa to identify with last year.

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Why was the Tour scrapped?

It was a punishment, a form of retaliation, for the corruption perpetrated by cycling officials in the last Southeast Asian Games.

What a rot. They penalized the people for their sins.

From what we’ve been told, there’s an ongoing case in the Ombudsman against these corrupt officials who had control of the budget but provided cheap, substandard equipment to our national athletes.

Yes, these same officials are holding an election this month in a bid to retain their post, if not to perpetuate glaring graft.

In fact, the Jan. 16 poll by this discredited group is already illegal, based on the ICFP charter.

The rule: The national cycling association must elect its set of officers in December of the Olympic year.