Leave athletes out of politics

POC first vice president and Larong Volleyball Sa Pilipinas, Inc. (LVPI) president Joey Romasanta yesterday appealed to sports officials with gripes about issues related to recognition to leave athletes out of testy political situations.

At the POC General Assembly meeting in Wack-Wack a few days ago, officials of the disenfranchised Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) showed up with athletes to demonstrate a show of loyalty. IOC member Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski was overheard advising the athletes to focus on studying, training and competing and stay out of messy politicking.

Apparently, the athletes were told to express support to the PVF before the General Assembly because they’re signed to contracts by the former NSA. But when asked about the binding clauses in their contracts, the athletes were in the dark. “I think it’s illegal to withhold copies of the contracts,” said Romasanta. “How can the athletes know what is deliverable? I sympathize with our athletes. They’re being manipulated and exploited. In volleyball, we’ve invited players to join the tryouts for the team competing at the Asian U23 Women’s Championships in Manila on May 1-9. We plan to reinforce the team with senior players for the Southeast Asian Games. Unfortunately, there are some players who are being restrained from joining the tryouts we’re conducting because they’re signed to contracts by the PVF. We’ve asked our lawyers to look into this and protect our athletes but we’re not being shown copies of the contracts.”

Romasanta said there is talk that disgruntled individuals are planning to go to court and secure a TRO to stay the staging of the Asian U23 Championships. “If that’s true, it’s unfortunate,” he said. “Manila is hosting but the AVC (Asian Volleyball Confederation) is staging the Championships. Will our courts go against the AVC? The international federation (FIVB) has recognized the LVPI as the new Philippine association for volleyball and the POC has accepted it as the NSA. If the PVF disagrees with this decision, it should take up the matter with the FIVB not the POC. At the moment, the PVF is no longer an entity recognized by the POC so it has lost its seat, voice and vote in the General Assembly.”

Romasanta said the LVPI is open to all volleyball stakeholders including those involved with the PVF. “It’s time to move forward,” he said. “The ultimate dream of an athlete is to represent his or her country but in women’s volleyball, we’ve been absent from the Southeast Asian Games for 10 years so the current crop of players has no notion of what it feels like to play with the national team. Our battlecry is to make volleyball the No. 2 premier sport in the Philippines next to basketball. In Thailand, sales of volleyballs are now higher than sales of basketballs. We’ve lagged behind in volleyball technology so there’s a lot of ground to cover.”

Romasanta said Ateneo’s Thai coach Tai Bundit has revolutionized the way the game is played here since his arrival in the UAAP. Bundit is the Thai national juniors coach. “We used to see a concentration of attackers in the middle but now, we’re seeing attackers from different angles, including the backline,” said Romasanta. “In Thailand, they introduce volleyball at a young age and when the players grow up, they’re trained according to height. They’re very methodical and scientific in training volleyball players. With the LVPI, we’re building a data base of players, coaches, referees and trainers at a national level. We want to see whom we’ve got, their track records, whom we need to train so we can upgrade.”

Romasanta said the Philippines will participate in two major Asian tournaments in May. The first is the Asian U23 Men’s Championships in Myanmar on May 12-20 and the second is the Asian Women’s Championships in Beijing and Tianjin on May 20-28. The Asian Women’s Championships will feature 16 teams with the Philippines joining Kazakhstan, South Korea and Australia in one of four elimination brackets.

The LVPI board is composed of former Rep. Concoy Chaves as chairman, Romasanta as president, Peter Cayco of Arellano University as vice president, Ricky Palou of Shakey’s V-League as secretary-general, Choy Cojuangco as chief finance officer, Ariel Paredes of Superliga and Rod Roque of UE as members, Jeff Tamayo as corporate treasurer, Ramon Malinao as legal counsel and Dr. Chippy Espiritu as resident managing director.

Romasanta said with the next POC elections in 2016, the mandate from POC president Jose Cojuangco is to resolve pending issues that put to doubt the legitimacy of certain NSAs. “We don’t want to disqualify any NSA from voting,” he said. “We want every POC regular member to exercise its right to vote.  After the Holy Week, we’ll review the Constitution and By-Laws and legal documents of every NSA to determine what needs to be done. We want every NSA to conform with the IOC and POC charters. We want each NSA to be fair, democratic and open to as many stakeholders as possible.”

Meanwhile, a report has surfaced pointing to an official of an NSA allegedly pocketing money otherwise due to four athletes who represented the country at a recent competition in Singapore. The report claimed that the official paid each of the four athletes a total allowance of $240 for four days when it should’ve been $300 for five days. The official allegedly pocketed the difference of $240 for himself.

“The allowances were distributed in Singapore,” said a source. “The official told the athletes that since they arrived in Singapore at night, they won’t be paid an allowance for that day so instead of five days, the allowance was for four days. The athletes signed for their allowance. But one of the athletes noticed he signed to receive an allowance for five days, not four. The other athletes didn’t read the fine print.” The president of the NSA, a lawyer, has been asked to investigate the alleged anomaly. The athletes returned home with a bronze medal in the men’s team tournament.