The clamor gets louder to give Olympic figure skater Michael Christian Martinez his due when he comes home. Of course, there’s no word yet on when the Filipino wonderboy on ice would be returning.
Manny Pacquiao, together with several colleagues in Congress, has filed a resolution saluting Martinez for his incredible feat in the Sochi Winter Games, where the 17-year-old former asthmatic thrilled with an amazing performance totally unexpected of someone who was born and grew up in the tropics.
There has been a debate on whether or not Martinez got support from his cash-strapped government.
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At least Malacañang has made a clean breast of it by wondering if Martinez’s request for assistance, made thru his mother, had ended up in the Internet spam folder.
The Office of Public Information has gone out of its way to detail the apparent miscommunication.
A review of the incident, however, fuels the suspicion that the Martinez family had also been treated like poor relations.
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Claming they’ve not been remiss, Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia was quoted as explaining the request either did not follow formal procedure or was sent thru the wrong channel.
Just the same, Garcia conveniently claimed he had an understanding with Hans Sy of the SM Group of Companies to underwrite Martinez’s training.
Truth is the young Martinez had gone on the record in California, where he trained on the way to Sochi, that they had not gotten support from the Philippine government.
This must be around the time the Martinez family had had to mortgage property at the height of Christian’s agony on ice and off it.
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Who knows? Maybe the PSC, funding arm of PH sports, had wanted to help but ultimately found Martinez’s Olympic quest impossible, patently quixotic?
It was also obvious Martinez did not get a second look from supposedly knowledgeable authorities in the national sports hierarchy.
That cannot be questioned because these jaded sports officials were obviously just trying to be realistic.
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But looking back, what’s quite odd here was the move resorted into by both the PSC and the POC when they upheld the shameful seventh-place finish-worst by the national contingent—in the last Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar.
That sickening result, needless to say, did serve as a diagnosis of the embarrassing state of Philippine sports.
Maybe Olympian Christian Martinez, he with the genuine grit, grace and gallantry, has preferred to stay away indefinitely to avoid being contaminated by the mediocrity, the rotten values being encouraged by both the PSC and the POC.