Mediation and diplomacy

No less than five meetings and 25 hours of discussion with each side separately and in plenary was enough to bring both sides together. With the help of the Mediation Dispute Board as part of a support group of four lawyers, Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Butch Ramirez was able to bring the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association and pole vaulter EJ Obiena back together again. The way this potentially disastrous issue was mended serves as a good example of mediation and diplomacy that stands in contrast to the initial statements revolving around the rowing row at the Vietnam  SEA Games. Granted, there will always be misunderstandings, snafus in coordination, and personality conflicts, but there are smooth ways to handle them.

In an initial online plenary lasting seven hours, both PATAFA and Obiena presented their sentiments and grievances. Succeeding sessions averaging about five hours gradually watered down hostility, opened each side to compromise, and inched them closer to resolution. Ramirez personally handled the sessions, with his support team on call. And though both sides initially went to media to make their own declarations, in the end, they stopped and kept returning to the mediation table.

“The importance of mediation is that it’s private, it’s confidential,” Ramirez explains. “I told them that we are creating an undertaking to compromise. Being combative does not help. The role of the mediator is not to solve the problem, but to provide an avenue for them to solve their own problem. If mediation fails, they would go to arbitration, then that’s their problem.”

Discretion was a major factor in resolving the conflict. Absence of blaming was another. In cases of logistical problems like what happened in the SEA Games preparations, it could be likened to the old trope about the four Bodies. Everybody thought that Somebody would do what Anybody could do, so Nobody ended up doing it. Going public and pointing fingers doesn’t help, particularly if you’re saying that the entity funding the entire campaign is to blame. Quietly working together and presenting solutions is a more effective and impactful display of leadership. The public will know that there was a problem, but also that it was dealt with and solved. Nothing to worry about. Nobody to blame. Everybody wins.

This writer often uses the term “grand opportunity” to put a positive spin on such issues. That is what we have here. With the Asian Games coming later this year and the next SEA Games in 2023, the only loss will be not having learned how to deal with these problems better. Placid, objective discussion in private will turn a tragedy into a triumph of unity and expert management.