Use slashed salary of athletes wisely, Alcantara says after pay cut

As a professional tennis player, Francis Casey Alcan­tara relies mainly on tournament earnings and sponsorships for income. That revenue stream suddenly stopped because of the coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic it caused.

But being a national athlete—and a Southeast Asian Games gold medalist at that—he gets a monthly allowance from the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC). He’s about to see that slashed, and he knows it would be wrong to raise a howl about that.

The PSC announced late Friday it is cutting allowances of athletes by 50 percent effective July in order to ensure the agency has enough funds to last until December.

“Yes, that’s sad,” Alcantara told the Inquirer. “But we can’t really complain because of what’s happening.”

Francis Alcantara doesn’t mind the sacrifice of a pay cut, as long as the money is used for the pandemic. —AUGUST DELA CRUZ

The PSC gives as much as P45,000 a month each to top caliber athletes and as low as P15,000 to national pool members. That’s aside from shouldering the athletes’ food expenses and foreign trips for competition.

“This is a hard decision to make, but one that needed to be done so we can continue caring for our athletes longer,” said PSC Chair William “Butch” Ramirez in a statement.

The PSC cited the cash flow disruption from the Natio­nal Sports Development Fund, which comes from the remittances of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor).

Pagcor relies mostly on casino earnings, which were substantially impacted by the monthslong lockdown imposed in an attempt to curb the rising toll of the health crisis.

Ramirez said that once the remittances gets to the “normal level,” the athletes’ allowance will be restored to the usual rates.

“I just hope that they are going to use the 50 percent of our salaries helping with the pandemic,” Alcantara said. “Right now everyone must put in his share of sacrifices.”

The PSC has already transformed the Philsports Arena and the Ninoy Aquino Stadium to serve as quarantine centers for the COVID-19 patients.