SACRAMENTO, California—The recent sports news cycle at home revolved around newly-elected Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Ricky Vargas and chair Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, who continued their victory lap by appearing in Congress.
Before the House majority leader and members of the chamber’s youth and sports committee, the duo was said to be in perfect harmony, warbling a duet with familiar refrains about sustained public-private partnerships for the grassroots discovery of athletes up to their training and their domestic and foreign exposure.
The tandem’s day on the big stage was calculated to appeal to the base. This includes solons who control meager sports purse strings, business patrons and donors encouraged by a fresh POC leadership, leaders of the national sports associations awaiting a new allowance scheme from the government, and athletes stunted during the reign of the man Vargas defeated, former Tarlac congressman Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr.
Also in this mix is the POC executive board, a body composed of Cojuangco himself as ex-officio member and elected holdovers from his fruitless 13-year term strewn with PH debacles in international sporting events.
That’s because voting in the court ordered POC polls last month was only for president and chair.
The Ricky and Bambol road show in the august halls was meant to spotlight the transparency of the new POC boss in line with his sports goals for the country, the biggest being the search for the Holy Grail—a first Olympic gold medal—and the steps to be followed to achieve these.
Vargas says he is not a politician.
It will be interesting to see how the long-time boxing alliance chief would interact with the POC board and determine how cooperative it would be in so far as his programs are concerned.
When Vargas began his race for the POC special election, he faced headwinds of the type that blows away rooftops in a storm. No doubt the violent gusts were summoned by members of the same POC board as constituted today.
That scenario still stings. But even though he has been savaged by the board before, Vargas has to coexist with the members, even appointing Cojuangco chair of the POC constitutional amendments committee.
This has prompted boisterous bystanders led by former Philippine Sports Commission chair Perry Mequi to label Vargas’s move as “the joke of the day.”
Mequi and company are also lighting up social media with an attack on another Vargas choice—that of Joey Romasanta, the controversial karatedo chief and Cojuangco’s top lieutenant, as chair of the ways and means committee.
Nevertheless, with his experience as a sports honcho and his sterling resume as a business executive, Vargas has the insight to understand the country’s targets in international meets.
Next year, the country hosts the Southeast Asian Games whose caliber of competition falls way below Asian Games standards. What about the Asiad this August? Where does it fit in Vargas’ plans and the country’s long ambition to end its Olympic gold drought?
In any case, Vargas will keep his seat until he decides to run for a full four-year term in 2020.