Peping: Philippine sports to get less fund under DOS

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine sports may end up with less instead of more if the proposed creation of a Department of Sports turns into reality.

“It’s not that easy,” said Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, who has shown opposition to the DOS plan.

Cojuangco, who’s been POC president since 2004, said abolishing the Philippine Sports Commission, which was created in 1990, is not a win-win solution to the problems hounding sports.

“If you abolish the PSC, you will lose the support from Pagcor,” said Cojuangco, referring to the monthly support the PSC gets from the Philippine Games and Amusement Corporation and other agencies like Philracom.

The PSC was created under Republic Act 6847, and the law orders Pagcor, a cash-rich government corporation, to remit to the PSC five percent of its monthly gross income.

That translates to around P50 million a month. The PSC uses the money to feed the close to 50 national sports associations (NSAs) and around 800 national athletes.

“We will lose the Pagcor support because it is part of Republic Act 6847,” said Cojuangco.

The Pagcor support amounts to around P600 million a year, which is thrice as much as what the PSC gets from the government annually under the General Appropriations Act.

The money from Congress is used by the PSC to pay the salaries of its officials and employees and its day-to-day operations, run the various grassroots programs around the country, and for sports infrastructure.

Creating a DOS will not guarantee Philippine sports of a budget as big as what the PSC gets from Pagcor and Philracom and Congress combined.

In the end, Philippine sports may end up with less.

What sports leaders must push and fight for, according to Cojuangco, is for Pagcor to remit to the PSC the entire five percent of its gross income as the law says, and not just half of it, which is the case since 1993.

Former Pampanga congressman Yeng Guiao last April filed a petition before the Supreme Court for Pagcor to start remitting to the PSC the whole five percent, saying the PSC has already lost around P4 billion in missed remittances since 2010 alone.

Based on their computation, Guiao said Pagcor owes the PSC around P10 billion since 1993 when it started remitting only 2.1375 percent to the government sports agency due to differences in the interpretation of the law.

If only Pagcor doubles its monthly remittance to the PSC, then the PSC will have enough or more than enough money in its coffers.

A handful of key sports figures, from former Gintong Alay director Michael Keon to former senator and basketball legend Robert Jaworski, has batted for the creation of a department that will cater only to sports.