Trillanes bats for wider range of cash incentives for medal-winning athletes

MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV is batting for a wider range of cash incentives designed to bring in more talents to the national team.

Trillanes, chair of the Senate Committee on Amateur Sports Competitiveness, said the first step would be to amend Republic Act 9064, known as the Sports Incentives Act, by including non-Olympic sports and increasing the financial windfall of medal-winning athletes.

Based on RA 9064, a gold medal in the Southeast Asian Games is worth P100,000, a silver P50,000 and bronze P10,000.

The Philippine Sports Commission Wednesday handed out the cash incentives of athletes amounting to P8 million and coaches (P4.1 million) who did the country proud in the recent 26th SEA Games in a simple ceremony at the Badminton Hall of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

There are 36 Filipino gold-medal winners, 56 silver and 77 bronze medalists in the Indonesia meet where the Philippines finished a record low sixth overall among 11 countries.

“I’ll take the lead in helping our national athletes receive more incentives,” said Trillanes, who was recently elected president of the Table Tennis Association of the Philippines along with businessman Jay Omila as chair.

“We will also work on the inclusion of non-Olympic sports in the package.”

The cash bonuses in the Incentives Act are confined to medal winners in the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games and SEA Games.

Billiards, bowling and chess—sports excluded in the Olympic program—have produced world-class athletes.
Together with chess and dancesport, athletes from these disciplines shone brightest for the Philippine delegation which nailed three gold medals, four silvers and nine bronzes in the Guangzhou Asian Games last year.

Bowler Biboy Rivera and billiards ace Dennis Orcollo won a gold medal each. Golf, billiards and chess captured a silver each while two bronze medals came from dancesport and another one from bowling.

Led by cue artist Iris Ranola, some 200 athletes received their cash incentives from PSC commissioner Chito Loyzaga, who represented PSC chair Richie Garcia.

Ranola was the biggest winner with a total of P200,000 for capturing gold medals in the women’s 9-ball and 8-ball.

Another double gold winner was bridge Francisco Alquiros but he shared the prize with partner George Soo in the men’s butler doubles, and Gemma Marina Tan in mixed butler team.

The champion in team events received P200,000 divided among members. With a report from Marc Anthony Reyes