Escudero on sports funding

MAYBE he’d been burned by reporters before that he finds it prudent to think media questions through first, or better yet filter these through his staff—a “comite de festejos,” joked a sports editor.

But I finally got answers from Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, fancied by some scribes as the most vocal voice for sports in the august halls. If surveys don’t lie, the 43-year old would be a sure winner in this year’s senatorial derby.

I had sought Escudero’s views mainly on this year’s Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar—the region’s mother of all barangay leagues. It took the senator, who’s now on the campaign trail a week to respond by e-mail, and then some.

True to form, the outspoken Chiz asks politicians populating the Philippine Olympic Committee and the National Sports Associations to scram, vamoose.

Without naming names, he observes that the nation’s sports officialdom is “a safe haven for politicians on vacation from elective positions.” He says “it would do sports best” if these pols skedaddle out of there.

With that out of his chest, Chiz makes it clear he bats for the training of athletes in the Olympic sports we can excel in. He says, “We are spreading our budget too thinly… it is a matter of prioritizing which sports should get government funding.”

Lack of state support, he says, “contributes to our mediocre performance on all fronts.”

He concedes, however, that every administration has bigger fish to fry, including a variety called economy and has neglected sports, often throwing crumbs in terms of backing.

By law, the Philippine Sports Commission gets its main government largesse from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. Pagcor is required to directly remit 5 percent of its gross income to the PSC. But since President Fidel V. Ramos left office, only half of the money has been directed to the sports agency that holds the purse strings for the NSAs.

In any case, the NSAs rely too heavily on government allotment, he says, that it is imperative to “change this attitude.” He points to a more solid public-private partnership to bankroll athletes by offering tax breaks to private sponsors that provide robust sports support.

As a senator, Escudero reports nothing new in terms of legislative action. He admits that the “Legislative Bodies (Congress) could only give part of the budget they deem government could afford.”

Chiz disagrees with the call for PH athletes to skip the SEA Games this December to save money and sharpen their focus on the Asian Games and the Olympics.

He says that the SEA Games somehow offer a “competitive venue” and “an important channel of unity and cooperation for the governments of the 11 member countries.”

Never mind that the SEA Games are substandard. “Athletes… should be prepared for what could be their chances at the Olympics,” he says. “The SEA Games is a step, the Asian Games is another…”

Escudero backs a new slate of events in the SEA Games “with a ‘fixed number’ of mostly Olympic sports.”

Like the POC, the senator says indigenous events, often a bonanza for the host country, are better left alone since they are part of the Southeast Asian culture, but “should be side events and not counted in the official medal tallies.”