INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Sports Commission will stick to the original list of 153 athletes and 47 officials approved by the Southeast Asian Games selection committee and will reject efforts by the Philippine Olympic Committee to add more members to the roster.

?There will be no changes in the number already approved,? said PSC chair Harry Angping yesterday, adding that any last-minute additions to the RP contingent will be ignored by the government agency.

Set to compete in 21 events, the Filipino medalists during the Dec. 9 to 18 competition in Vientiane will be rewarded with another set of bonuses after Angping promised to match the original incentives of P100,000, P50,000 and P10,000 for the gold, silver and bronze winners.

?They are going to war, they should be properly equipped,? said Angping. ?I will give them food every day and make sure they won?t worry about anything. There will be no reason for them not to succeed.?

Laos SEA Games chef de mission Mario Tanchangco said the RP roster needs the final approval of the POC board, adding he merely acted as observer during a meeting with Angping and PSC commissioner Joey Mundo that approved the size of the national delegation.

?So he (Tanchangco) went to the meeting not as a representative of the POC? Is that what they are saying?? said Angping.

?The list that we reviewed and approved was a product of the work of Tanchangco and commissioner Mundo. And that list came from the national sport associations.?

Tanchangco, the POC second vice president, has been at the helm of the negotiations, together with Mundo, in preparing the list of the RP delegation based on recommendations from the NSAs.

POC president Jose ?Peping? Cojuangco Jr. had earlier announced that the Olympic body would look for sponsors to shoulder the participation of athletes who would not be supported by the PSC.

?Including athletes who failed to make the criteria will affect the morale of the team,? Angping said.

He said the agency saved P10 million by cutting the roster of athletes to the Games.

The decision to double the incentives for medalists came a day after Angping announced an extra training allowance of P7,500 for the Nationals on top of an extra $100 pocket money while they are in Laos.