SEA Games bets’ credentials now open to public

Photo by Romy Homillada

The progress of athletes gearing up for the coming Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar  will be displayed in public for everybody to see.

Philippine chef de mission Jeff Tamayo Wednesday said the national sports associations (NSAs) competing in the games have been required to submit their list of athletes with their corresponding performances on or before May 9.

The POC will post them on a large white board in prominent areas at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex and at the office of the POC-PSC Task Force.

“They (NSAs) sometimes submit names who don’t meet the standards that we set,” said Tamayo, also the POC second vice president.  “By being transparent, we could determine before the SEA Games if an athlete could win a medal or not.”

Tamayo said the monitoring of the athletes will be the responsibility of the joint SEAG Task Force composed of seven officials from the POC and PSC.

The president of the soft tennis association noted  that such a move has become necessary since the PSC, the sports-funding government agency, has only earmarked P30 million which is half of the budget for the 2011 Indonesia SEAG.