NLEX coach Yeng Guiao. (File photo by TRISTAN TAMAYO / INQUIRER.net)
NLEX coach Yeng Guiao said he is optimistic that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of a petition he filed that seeks to compel the Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. (Pagcor) to remit to the Philippine Sports Commission its full share of the gaming agency’s earnings.
Guiao said a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court could be a “game changer” for Philippine sports.
“It is a big boost to the perennial problem of having too little funds for our sports programs,” said Guiao Thursday, behind the scenes of his guesting on Sports IQ, the Inquirer’s multi-platform live sports talk show.
“If the Supreme Court rules in our favor, and I’m optimistic it will, that will be a game changer,” he added.
Section 26 of Republic Act 6847, the law that created the PSC, clearly states that “5 percent of Pagcor’s gross income shall be automatically remitted directly to the PSC.”
“All the PSC is getting right now is less than 2.5 percent of Pagcor’s earnings,” Guiao later explained during the show. “That means the PSC is getting below half of what it is lawfully theirs.”
Last year, for example, Pagcor grossed P55.06 billion in revenues—a record for the agency.
But the PSC’s share from that pie amounted to P1.26 billion. While that was an increase of P235 million remitted to the PSC in 2015, it was still way off the approximately P2.8 billion that the sports-funding agency should have gotten.
Guiao said the money deficit his resolution would cover will provide the PSC with additional funding, not only for the training of elite athletes from targeted sports and the building of a wide grassroots base but also give sports officials the chance to put up a sports training facility outside Metro Manila.
“We can, for example, seriously study building a training center in Clark,” said Guiao.
Triathlon star Nikko Huelgas, the Southeast Asian Games gold medalist who was with Guiao on the show, admitted that training outside of Metro Manila was a huge factor in his successful bid to rule the biennial meet in back-to-back editions.
“The training environment is better, there’s less distractions and you can really focus on your preparation,” said Huelgas.
The national sports program has long been hampered by a lack of solid funding and sports officials have always pointed to that as the reason for every debacle Team Philippines sufferes in the SEA Games, Asian Games or the Olympics.
And Guiao hopes a favorable Supreme Court ruling can remedy that situation.
“There’s no other way to interpret the [PSC] law,” said Guiao. “The wording is very specific when it comes to the PSC’s share of Pagcor’s revenues.”
“I’m hoping we can get a ruling this year,” Guiao added. “At the latest, we’re looking at early next year. Our lawyers are constantly working on it.”