GAB chairman draws fire

The chair of the Games and Amusements Board (GAB) was under attack by a sports columnist recently.

The writer’s fiery rhetoric deems that Juan Ramon Guanzon is an arrogant bureaucrat who’s unfit for his job.

Frowning on the GAB’s officialdom comes easy because the agency hasn’t been a paragon of virtue in performing its mandate to safeguard the well-being of professional athletes, notably boxers.

Every so often, licensed fighters fly to places under the GAB’s radar and end up beaten senseless or dead in a foreign ring.

Some sectors of the sporting press are raking Guanzon over the coals because of his perceived dislike of boxing:

He declared two of our top amateur boxers seeking Olympic berths professionals.

Guanzon is after Mark Anthony Barriga and Charly Suarez, elite fighters of the Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (Abap).

The duo’s road to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro runs through the Aiba (International Amateur Boxing Association) Pro Boxing league.

The new league showcases 120 of the top-ranked Aiba boxers, including Suarez and Barriga chosen the world over to compete in 10 weight categories.

Called “The Revolution” by Aiba president C.K. Wu, the league according to its website, sets out to “create a new, secure and revolutionary pathway for amateur boxers to move up into a professional career.”

Circuit boxers earn purses while still remaining eligible for the Olympic Games. For Rio, where pros will be permitted for the first time, 63 of the berths are reserved for boxers from the APB competitions.

Against this backdrop, Guanzon believes firmly that the “pro” label in Aiba Pro Boxing sticks like glue.

The GAB chief said after the Abap “failed” to answer several key questions, the “bottom line” for his agency was to declare Suarez and Barriga “to be pro boxers… within our legal mandate.”

Since it would be illegal for both to fight abroad without GAB licenses, Guanzon said he had informed the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration about a breach of the law.

If these agencies “believe otherwise, at least GAB is free from culpability just in case anything unpleasant happens as a result of Abap’s refusal to have its pro boxers regulated and supervised…” Guanzon said.

Only the courts through the DOJ and BI can issue hold departure orders. Guanzon denied seeking these on Suarez and Barriga whose engagements in the APB overseas resume in May.

So why won’t the Abap comply?

A GAB license is a no-no since it would be deemed government intervention by the IOC and could result in a suspension for Abap whose fighters remain the best hopes for the country’s first ever Olympic gold medal.

Aside from existing statute, “there are so many other compelling reasons why… we don’t need to have our boxers secure GAB licenses,” says Abap executive director Ed Picson.

Barriga and Suarez are “fighting for flag and country,” said Picson. “The fact that Aiba has made it (sic) a profitable enterprise should make us happy for our athletes.”

“I am just dismayed that these boxers… are being pressured and demoralized because someone has decided they are professionals,” Picson emphasized.

“This has affected their focus and training and that’s just sad.”