MANILA, Philippines—Some 600 athletes are expected to be dropped from the national pool and lose their monthly allowances as the Philippine Sports Commission implements its new policy of prioritizing support for 10 sports and strong medal-hopefuls starting March 1.
Hardest hit are the Blu Boys and the Blu Girls in softball and members of the national baseball team, who have been stricken off the pool despite striking gold in the November Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia
PSC chair Richie Garcia admitted in a radio program Thursday that streamlining the national pool was “a very unpopular move,” but something the agency has to do in line with the directive from President Aquino to prioritize sports where the country carries the strongest chance of winning.
“From the very beginning we knew this thing was going to be a very unpopular move,” said Garcia. “But we were left with no choice. We have to prioritize on certain sports to maximize the limited funds that we have.”
The PSC has earlier come out with a list of priority sports with boxing and taekwondo topping the roster and getting P15 million budget each for this year alone.
Garcia said they may decide to delay the implementation in order to consider some sports which were not included in the last SEA Games like dancesports.
But the PSC chief said they need to make the “drastic move” to whip the country into shape. The Philippines is smarting from a sixth-place finish in the Games with 36 gold, 56 silver and 77 bronze medals.