Incentives for disabled athletes

Philippine Sports Association for the Differently Abled (Philspada) and National Paralympic Committee of the Philippines (NPCP) president Mike Barredo said recently even as the proposed amendment to R. A. 9064 is pending, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) has always treated disabled athletes with respect and fairness in accordance with the government agency’s sports for all program.

The amendment stipulates cash incentives and other non-monetary benefits for disabled athletes who capture medals at the Palaympics, the Asian Para Games, the ASEAN Para Games and other international competitions related to the world, Asian and ASEAN age-group championships.

Barredo said for the 3rd ASEAN Para Games in 2007, the PSC awarded P25,000 for a gold medal, P15,000 for a silver and P10,000 for a bronze. For the 9th Asian Para Games in 2006, the incentives were P100,000 for a gold, P50,000 for a silver and P25,000 for a bronze. In all, the PSC handed out a total of P700,000 to 13 athletes who brought back medals from the Kuala Lumpur event. Additionally, the PSC distributed P350,000 as reward for the disabled athletes’ coaches.

For the record, the country’s gold medalists at the 2006 Asian Para Games (then known as the Far East and South Pacific Games or FESPIC) were 400-meter freestyle swimmer Daniel Damaso and pentathlon champion Juanito Mingarine. The silver medalists were 40-kilogram powerlifter Achelle Guion, table tennis doubles partners Josephine Medina and Minnie de Ramos, Medina in class table tennis singles, shot putter Jeanette Acebeda and Alson Tumbagahan of sailing. The bronze medalists were Medina in open table tennis singles, Acebeda in javelin and discuss throws, Evaristo Carbonel of discuss throw, 5,000-meter runner Isidro Vildosola, 100-meter runner Enano Paz, 400-meter runner Ruth Macaraeg, shot putter Gerardo Gonzalo and Joel Balatucan in javelin and discuss throws.

The coaches who received incentives were Antonio Ong, Bernard Buen and Joel Deriada of athletics, Ramon Debuque of powerlifting, Pedro Tablate of sailing and Ramil Sta. Ana of table tennis.

Barredo pointed out that disabled athletes undergo a more challenging physical and mental conditioning program than other athletes to get ready for a competition because of their impairments “But we’re proud to note that our Filipino disabled athletes have been very competitive,” he said. “At the FESPIC Games in 2002, we took two silver and three bronze medals and in 2006, our haul consisted of two gold, six silver and 10 bronze medals. These were parallel events to the Asian Games so the level of competition was much higher than at the ASEAN Para Games.”

Barredo said he has known PSC chairman Harry Angping for over 30 years since their school and Jaycee days.

 “Chairman Harry and I go back a long way,” he said. “I’ve served in the PSC myself. I realize the current law does not require cash incentives for disabled athletes and the PSC is doing a commendable fiscal management job in cleaning up and setting priorities. But I’m hoping Chairman Harry recognizes what our disabled athletes have done for our country. I know his heart is for all our athletes, differently abled or not.”

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Former national squash champion Manny Boy Yam, now a full-time coach in Auckland, said he hopes to visit Manila at least once a year to give back to the sport he loves.

 “I’ll do free clinics and exhibitions, anything to support the Squash Rackets Association of the Philippines (SRAP),” Yam said who was in town for the holidays. “But to get a development program going, we need a strong infrastructure. That’s the foundation that the SRAP must build to move forward.”

Yam, 41, said he is retired from active competition. “I don’t play tournaments anymore because of my bum knees which have been subjected to much abuse,” he said. “I’m currently running several programs involving juniors and adults as well as school squash organized by the Auckland association. Squash is one of the physical education programs in elementary and high school in New Zealand. I also run what we call ‘boot camps’ for fiercely competitive players who take inter-club tournaments quite seriously. These camps start at 6:30 a.m. before players go to work. I’m quite involved with training my two boys, too, for junior tournaments and it’s great that they’re doing very well even if they’ve just been playing for less than three years.”

Yam’s son Rafa, 11, is Auckland’s No. 1 junior age-group champion and New Zealand’s No. 2. His other son Miguel, 15, is also a budding squasher. Yam has trained over 200 players in the age range of five to 60, including the world’s ladies masters No. 2 Liza Cowlard, since relocating to Auckland three years ago. Yam was recently named New Zealand’s Coach of the Year.

Yam was unbeaten in local tournaments from 1986 to 1995. He earned three bronze medals – one for singles and two for team – in two Southeast Asian Games and topped the Malaysian Junior Open in 1985 and the Indonesian Open in 1989.

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PBA commissioner Sonny Barrios carefully reviewed angles taken by at least 12 different TV cameras before deciding whether or not to uphold the flagrant-2 penalty on Talk ‘N’ Text’s Ranidel de Ocampo last Saturday. The day before, De Ocampo was whistled for a flagrant-2 after picking up a blocking foul on a driving Ronald Tubid in Game 4 of the Talk ‘N’ Text-Barangay Ginebra quarterfinal series in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Araneta Coliseum. The call triggered a walkout by the Tropang Texters with a minute left in the first period and the Kings on top, 27-20.

Barrios eventually ruled to uphold the flagrant-2 as in his view, De Ocampo committed an excessively hard foul on Tubid by planting an elbow on his cheek.

Under PBA rules, game-related issues are within the commissioner’s authority to decide. The review of a flagrant-2 penalty is done the day after a game. It cannot be done during a game to avoid a situation where team officials repeatedly badger the commissioner for arbitration.

 “Whatever game-related issues are decided by the commissioner are unappealable and irreversible by the PBA Board,” said Barrios. “That’s because the PBA Board mainly takes up high-level policy matters where members are not conflicted, like the awarding of the TV rights and setting playing venues. If the PBA Board gets involved in game-related issues, it will become highly politicized. Imagine calling for a special Board meeting every time a governor wants to question a call that was made in a game. If the PBA Board no longer has confidence in the commissioner to decide on game-related issues, then the solution is to remove the commissioner, not to change the rule.”

Postscript: The Games and Amusements Board (GAB) supervised the recent World Slasher Cup at the Big Dome. The GAB made sure each cock weighed within the range of 1.9 to 2.5 kilos and the blade affixed to each cock was the Filipino-style curved bolo-like knife, which is unlike the American version of a pointed one-inch “ice-pick.” The local version has no length limit – the cocker has the leeway to determine the length depending on the ability of the gamefowl to carry the blade and its fighting style.... The weekly Boxing News of London recently ran a survey asking respondents whom Floyd Mayweather, Jr. should fight next in the wake of his aborted showdown with Manny Pacquiao. Nate Campbell polled the highest at 38 percent with Tim Bradley second at 35 percent. Others named were in order, Kermit Cintron, Ricky Hatton, Paulie Malignaggi and Matthew Hatton. Sugar Shane Mosley was not nominated but got the nod as Mayweather’s next opponent at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on May 1. Both Mosley and Mayweather are affiliated with Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy promotions outfit.