No country for old men? Not quite as ‘tyranny of numbers’ derails POC age cap

An attempt to infuse fresh reforms in Philippine sports was derailed on Friday in an executive board meeting that provided a glimpse of a fractured Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) that could be headed to contentious elections this November.

Proposed amendments pushed by allies of POC president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, most crucially a rule that would have imposed an age limit on those seeking POC positions, were shut down via a Zoom meeting on Friday that ended up being a display of opposing blocs trying to one-up each other.

“I appealed to all to act as one and not as protagonists in a political encounter,” Tolentino said in a statement after the meeting, which lasted five hours. “Unfortunately, reforms were blocked using the tyranny of numbers.”

Tolentino had earlier backed the age cap for POC officials, claiming it was time to infuse fresh blood into Philippine sports, which has lagged behind even its regional rivals in Southeast Asia in the past decades. The move to amend election laws to include an age cap of 70 for the POC presidency and 75 for other POC positions was pushed by the constitution and by-laws committee headed by boxing chief Ricky Vargas.

But several of the POC’s old guards saw it as a political tool for the November polls, where Tolentino, the cycling chief is expected to seek reelection against archery boss Clint Aranas.

“We should allow the voting membership to decide which leaders they want, we don’t have to qualify the candidates for them,” said first vice president Joey Romasanta, who said the proposal would have received more support had it been made during a “nonpolitical season”.

The 75-year-old Romasanta is among the executive board (EB) members past 70 along with handball president Steve Hontiveros, wushu’s Julian Camacho, chess’ Prospero Pichay Jr., and gymnastics’ Cynthia Carrion. Romasanta and Hontiveros are expected to back Aranas in November.

“If the amendments are for the next elections [after November], maybe we can agree,” Romasanta said.

What started out as a meeting to institute reforms instead became a game of proposal shoot-downs.

The Tolentino bloc also dismissed a petition to open the POC presidency to national ports association heads of non-Olympic sports.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) representative to the Philippines Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski stated that the IOC doesn’t prohibit non-Olympic sports representatives from the executive board and the presidency of national Olympic committees (NOC).

“There are actually a few NOC presidents who are from non-Olympic sports,” Cojuangco-Jaworski said in a statement. “The only condition is that Olympic sports federations representatives must always have a voting majority in the NOC GA (general assembly) and EB.”

Tolentino’s group also attempted the removal of the chairman position—currently held by Hontiveros. But the majority fired back by proposing for the abolition of the board position of the immediate past president, which happens to be Tolentino ally Vargas.