Major boost

MANILA, Philippines — From here on, and thanks to former Pampanga congressman and decorated basketball coach Yeng Guiao, the Philippine Sports Commission will no longer have to beg for funding.

This after the Supreme Court “denied with finality” the appeal of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) regarding the High Tribunal’s 2024 ruling for the latter to remit the full five percent of its gross annual income to the PSC.

In an 11-page decision dated Oct. 7, 2025 and penned by Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and nine associate justices, PAGCOR and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office “are ordered to submit a detailed account of the annual amounts owed to the Philippine Sports Commission and actual remittances made each year, from 1993 to present for PAGCOR and from 2006 to present for PCSO. The balance of remittances due must be paid over a period of 10 years.”

Based on computations, the amount that is due to the PSC, now under chairman Patrick Gregorio, is around P33 billion.

Guiao, then vice chairman of the House Committee on Youth and Sports Development, in 2016 filed a petition to compel PAGCOR and PCSO to remit funds (five percent of the annual gross and not 2.5 percent) to the PSC in accordance with Section 26 of Republic Act No. 6847, also known as the Philippine Sports Commission Act.

It took Guiao nine years to claim victory for Philippine sports and the Filipino athletes.

“It was a long, hard struggle but it’s a victory for Philippine sports,” said Guiao, winner of seven championships in the PBA and former mentor of the Philippine team.

“Big day for Philippine sports,” said Gregorio. “It’s not just a blessing for the PSC but for the Filipino youth. It is not just the dreams of the PSC. It is the dream of the next generation of Filipino athletes.”

The PSC will no longer be forced to do more with less when it comes to funding as it pursues its mandate to develop Philippine sports – from grassroots programs all the way to the elite level, providing the athletes and coaches with their most basic needs, from higher allowances and bigger cash incentives, training venues and infrastructures, more comfortable living conditions in their training headquarters to equipment, foreign exposures and the hiring of foreign top-caliber coaches.