Oca confab to generate businesses, sports deals

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will host the Olympic Council of Asia General Assembly this weekend with the hope of generating influence among the region’s top sports leaders.

Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. Tuesday said the GA will also be an opportunity to offer business and tourism ventures to the sports leaders from 45 nations arriving to commemorate the Olympic council’s centennial.

“Let us not limit this event to just sports,” said Cojuangco during Tuesday’s PSA Forum at Shakey’s Malate.

“This is for the country. This is a chance to display the resiliency of the Filipino people that despite what happened, we are able to host this.”

The event was originally set late last year in Boracay but plans were shelved after the devastation wrought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in the Visayas.

“And we should be thankful to the OCA through president Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmer Al-Sabah.

He was the one who insisted that this be held in Manila,” Cojuangco said.

Cojuangco said the OCA will shoulder all the expenses for the two-day gathering that begins on Friday with committee meetings in the morning, OCA executive council meeting in the afternoon and the Asian Games commemoration dinner.

The Asian Games, the successor of the Far Eastern Games, was first held in 1951 in New Delhi. Manila staged the next edition in 1954.

The actual General Assembly will be on Saturday with top officials reporting their programs and achievements before local and international media in the afternoon.

Aside from Kuwait’s Sheikh Al Sabah, who is set to arrive Wednesday, other top OCA delegates who have confirmed attendance are Olympic pole vault legend Sergey Bubka, Prince Faisal Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice president John Coates, IOC executive board members Ching-Kuo Wu and Sam Ramsamy and IOC directors of National Olympic Committee (NOC) Relations Pere Miro and Vinod Kumar Tiwari.