The PSC of tomorrow

After a period of relative quiet, the Philippine Sports Commission is in the news again. Last Friday, the agency’s industrious chairman, Butch Ramirez, revealed the list of national sports associations (NSAs) who have not liquidated the funds disbursed to them by the commission. The long-time educator has been fighting this particular battle since 2016, because it adversely affects both the athletes and the PSC’s speed in replenishing said funds. That is critical considering the depletion the agency experienced earlier this year as PAGCOR – its main source of funds – saw its earnings depleted when the pandemic struck.

“You may have the best development plan, but if you don’t have the cooperation of the LGUs, DepEd, Congress and other government agencies, it’s all just story-telling,” Ramirez explains. “But I have faith that 2021 will be better for all of us.”

Ramirez’s schedule has been packed the past week. He has been receiving visits from several foreign ambassadors seeking his advice on the Sports for Peace initiative which he piloted in Mindanao over a decade ago. Apparently, there is great interest in replicating its success among culturally diverse nations in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere. Ramirez’s program was cited by the United Nations for bringing together Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples of the southern Philippines. In 2013, the UN declared April 6 as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. Once again, Ramirez was ahead of the times.

The PSC is also raising the bar for health and safety protocols for the planned bubble for national athletes at the Inspire Sports Academy in Laguna. The commission is finding security fits for all the diverse national individual and team sports athletes, coaches and trainers who will live there as they prepare for the Vietnam SEA Games in November. (Four of the country’s athletes who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in July have been training abroad for months already.) Once in place, the multi-layered protection plan will be a model for prevention and containment that allows high-level training to resume.

Ramirez has been reviewing the 2017-2022 development plan he and his team crafted when they assumed office, looking at it now through the eyes of experience. The review (and potential modifications) are part of Ramirez’s plan to leave a viable blueprint for the next PSC board that will come in after the 2022 elections. It is very difficult to craft lasting change in the maximum of six years that PSC officials are appointed to their positions by a sitting President. Ramirez is thinking ahead. Another thing the next PSC can learn from him.