MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippine taekwondo team remained on track in its quest of booking slots to next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Olympics hopefuls Samuel Morrison and Arven Alcantara were forgiven by the Philippine Taekwondo Association for violating national team protocols and will remain in the squad.
Morrison and Alcantara wrote Sung Chon Hong, the country’s grand master of the sport, a letter of apology with an accompanying courtesy resignation after attending a recent online training seminar organized by an Olympian and former national team mainstay without the consent of the PTA.
“Master Hong said he is not accepting and forgave them with a plea not to do it again,” PTA secretary-general Rocky Samson told The STAR on Saturday.
Samson said the two were misled that they would only do a meet-and-greet and not a seminar and there was no money involved.
“They felt really wronged they were being given money, which is a mortal sin in the national team. They returned the money,” said Samson.
Morrison and Alcantara, a gold and silver medalist in last December’s Southeast Asian Games, are two of the five with realistic chances of booking a berth to the quadrennial summer games.
The other three who are still in the Olympic hunt are Pauline Lopez, Kurt Bryan Barbosa and 2016 Rio veteran Kirstie Alora.
“We will not be derailed in our Olympic quest and we remained committed to it,” said Samson.