Tatap leadership row now in courts

While cycling has seen the light of day, dark times loom ahead for table tennis.

The Philippine Olympic Committee is taking its hands off the raging leadership dispute in table tennis after one of the parties sought relief from the courts.

The Table Tennis Association of the Philippines (Tatap) headed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV yesterday filed a case before the Manila Regional Trial Court to validate its leadership claim over former national player Ting Ledesma.

Tatap chair Jay Omila, who acted as plaintiff on behalf of Trillanes’ group, accused the Ledesma faction of illegally representing Tatap before the POC, the Philippine Sports Commission and other government offices without any basis in law and in the amended by-laws of the association.

POC president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. said the Olympic body will not interfere and leave it up to the courts to settle the issue.

“I offered a stakeholders meeting for both groups to settle their differences, but one of them decided to file a case so that leaves us out,” said Cojuangco, who recently helped solve the three-year-old crisis in cycling.

Tagaytay City Mayor Abraham Tolentino and former PSC chair Philip Ella Juico reached a compromise with Tolentino to get a fresh mandate as PhilCycling president and Juico as vice president in a unified election on July 3.

Omila claimed his group, armed with a Securities and Exchange Commission registration, religiously followed the by-laws of the Tatap by holding an election and a national championship on the first week of April in an Olympic year.

Ledesma and his faction held their election one month later.