39 national sports bodies to receive PSC funding

MANILA, Philippines – Starting this year, only the 39 national sports associations (NSAs) seeing action in the 31st Southeast Asian Games set November 21 to December 2 in Hanoi, Vietnam will get funding from the Philippine Sports Commission this year.

The rest will have to be self-sufficient.

This came after the PSC recently approved the list of SEAG entry by numbers submitted by Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino a week ago.

“Those NSAs not in the list will be under review because they have no competition this year,” a source told The STAR. “Arnis might be the exception because they’re our national sport and they have a series of activities and quincentennial this year.”

Among the sports included in the list are athletics, boxing, aquatics, gymnastics, taekwondo, fencing, wushu, chess, canoe-kayak and team events basketball, volleyball, football and handball.

Also entered were triathlon, esports, judo, pencak silat, shooting, karate, weightlifting, rowing, wrestling, kickboxing, muay thai, bodybuilding, billiards and snooker, dancesport, tennis, golf, archery, badminton, bowling, jiu-jitsu, speak takraw, vovinam, fin swimming and table tennis.

For other NSAs not in the list, it would have to start fending for themselves or hope and pray there will be enough money left for the PSC to keep them to be inserted into the government sports-funding agency’s payroll.

“To be fair, the PSC will review the non-SEAG NSAs,” said the same source.