Fixing broken rhetoric

The second day of the “Top-Level Consultative Meeting in Development Plan for Philippine Sports and Set-Up of Philippine Sports Institute” fleshed out much of what needs to be done within the next few years to guarantee success in grassroots development and international elite athlete training. Much of the dysfunctional rhetoric from the past is replaced with new learning and clear programs on the government side. A more determined and even forceful Philippine Sports Commission has emerged, with the mandate from Pres. Rodrigo Duterte to unite sports.

“I have already informed various national sports associations that I would double their budget if they give me their programs and produce results,” said PSC chair Butch Ramirez. “But for those who have unliquidate funds, I cannot do anything. My hands are tied, because that is the law.”

Former Rep. Yeng Guiao spoke about the case he filed to recover roughly P10 billion in unremitted funds from PAGCOR from the National Sports Development Fund from the 1990’s, and how it can help with the establishment not only of solid training programs, but even a national training center, the case is now with the Supreme Court. Afterwards, first-time Makati Rep. and former taekwondo champion Monsour del Rosario shared his high hopes for the improvement of Philippine sports, and expressed how advancements in technology and science have made a big difference.

“If we had had mental coaching in my time, I probably would have never gotten knocked out,” said the former Olympian. “Today’s athletes have so many new tools to make winning easier for them.”

We can also build on existing wisdom. We already have successful models. For one, take the example of the Philippine Volcanoes. Through mostly their own independent efforts, they went from having no existing program to qualifying for the Rugby 7s World Cup in less than a decade. They have a very healthy league with 23 teams, just finished a major under 19s tournament, have free open rugby for anyone willing to learn, and from the very beginning, insisted in a strong corporate social responsibility program. Their sponsorship grows each year, and now they have their own office, independent from government support. When you consider that the sport is not played by as many people as basketball or even bowling, that is a remarkable portfolio in so short a time. Additionally, Fil-foreign rugby players are in high demand professionally in other countries like Japan.

Institutionally, there is the astonishing track record of the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC), which has notched four Guinness World Records in just eight years. In 1998, Team Cebu City Dancesport obliterated the existing world standard, tripling it, in fact, with 7,770 dancers. Realizing that chess was a forgotten sport in Cebu, CCSC chair Ed Hayco had close to 500 public school teachers trained in the sport. In 2011, just a year later, they established another Guinness World Record, as tens of thousands of children could now participate in a chess tournament. In 2013, CCSC figured out how to make cheaper bows by simply bending PVC pipes. The result was another world record. And last year, the city gathered over 5,000 arnis practitioners for their fourth world record. Their secret is simple. Hayco calls it cascading. They train the athletes for free, and in exchange, the athletes are asked to teach for free.

“But just to be clear, we did not do it for the world records,” Hayco explained. “We just wanted to give children a goal, something they would want to be part of, some they would try new sports.”

The Philippines also has inspirational individual role models. Paeng Nepomuceno, now head coach of the national bowling team, has been in the sport for almost half a century, and continues to contribute mightily. He is the only non-American certifying coach at the Gold Level for the US Bowling Congress. He has faced every adversity in sport, from politics to injury to damaged equipment before a competition, and has managed to thrive in the face of all those challenges. There are surely lessons to be learned from him. Another example is Luzviminda McClinton, who had a very tough, poor upbringing as a child, who overcame the death of her mother, teen pregnancy, putting herself through school, and working overseas to become the first Filipino, male or female, to win a world bodybuilding championship. The reason very few of her countrymen know about her is that she accomplished the feat in Las Vegas on the same day that Manny Pacquiao defeated Antonio Margarito in Dallas.

The second day of the conference also revealed a major challenge of coordination within sports, and underscored the huge role the Department of Education can still play in uplifting sports throughout the country, in school PE programs, the instructors are general practitioners, not the specialists in individual sports that are needed. In the provinces, the situation is even more dire.

“Do you know that 80 percent of PE teachers and trainers are not in sports?” Hayco explained. “They are English teachers, social studies teachers. Those who teach tennis or table tennis never played the sport; they were never athletes. So by the time the athletes get to the Palarong Pambansa, their fundamentals are already wrong. Also, many of these athletes are orphans, they can’t afford to go to school anymore. So they end up as house help or in the streets.”

The plea of sports officials is that DepEd not certify any sports instructors or tournament officials who have not been trained by the relevant national sports association. This is to ensure that the children get the proper training in the fundamentals of their chosen sport before progressing to competitions like the Palarong Pambansa. Ramirez promised to bridge the gap and smooth out any miscommunication between the department and the NSAs.