Juico: We did not cut Tabal, she quit

Mary Joy Tabal. FILE Photo from Cebu Daily News

Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (Patafa) president Philip Juico clarified Wednesday that Mary Joy Tabal was not cut from the national team.

“She resigned,” Juico told the Inquirer. “And she never said she was coming back despite us reaching out to ask her if she wants to meet about her reinstatement.”

Juico said Tabal resigned from the national team after the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last year after becoming the first Filipino female marathoner to race in the Olympiad.

The runner, however, denied the claim.

“I did not resign after Rio Olympics,” she said in a message to Cebu Daily News. “I received an email from Patafa [a] few days after I arrived from Rio that my reinstatement will end or is up to Aug.30, 2016 only.”

Juico, however, insisted that Tabal quit the team and said he has taped recordings of their meetings where she acknowledged as much.

“Tabal and her handler, Johnel Borromeo, insisted in a number of meetings that Tabal was leaving the national team after the Rio Olympics. They said they would get in touch with us when they’re free to discuss with us how she proposed to go back to [the national team].”

“We have recordings of the meeting where she was present and we gave her a document for her to study and sign if she wanted to be reinstated,” Juico said. “Her sponsor even acknowledged that they were only good up to the Rio Olympics.”

Juico said Patafa sent emails to Tabal’s team between September and October last year to remind them of the meetings. But no meeting has yet transpired between the two camps.

Juico formed a body to set a meeting with Tabal and her team to discuss if she could be reinstated in time for the Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur in August.

The group is composed of coach Jojo Posadas, Patafa secretary general Nonoy Unso, Patafa communications and marketing director Edward Kho and lawyer Rufus Rodriguez, a Patafa director.