Time to get serious about sports

By Boo Chanco

Horrible…humiliating… expected... three words to describe our dismal performance in the last Southeast Asian games in Indonesia. We ended 6th in gold medal winnings, just ahead of Myanmar. Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and even the city state of Singapore, with a population less than that of Metro Manila, were ahead of us. At 42 golds, we are not even a third of what top placer Indonesia won at 152.

Some may say, what’s the big deal? It is only sports. We have more urgent priorities than playing games. True but that would be the wrong way of viewing it. Sports competition is about national pride. That’s why sports heroes in ancient Greece are lionized. That’s also what Manny Pacquiao is all about…why even criminal elements take a day off when Manny has a big fight.

This country can really use a mega dose of national pride. It is obvious by the way we respond to PacMan that we thirst for something to be proud of as a people. For at least one Sunday, we are one as a people cheering on one of us as he fights some of the world’s best boxers. Given our national situation today, we can most certainly use a PacMan fight every week.

Look how we have cheered on the Azkals in a sport that we have ignored until the Azkals came around. Even the team name indicates the lack of attention… the lack of pedigree… street mongrels no one cares for unless you are into exotic delicacies.

Hungry to show the best we can be, we cheered the Azcals on after they scored unexpected victories in international competitions. They may not yet be World Cup material but we all want to believe they are on their way there. Last Saturday’s friendly match with the LA Galaxy led by David Beckham gave us a chance to cheer the underdogs even if we knew they didn’t have a chance. We give credit for trying and the Azkals do try to win against heavy odds.

I am not much of a sports buff myself but I remember my growing up years and how we loved our regional supremacy in basketball… how Flash Elorde won a world championship title and how a boxer whose name escapes me now, won a silver medal in the Olympics, our best achievement in the Olympics ever and since.

I also remember Mona Sulayman, Elma Muros and Lydia de Vega who could be depended on to bring in some golds in track and field. Our medal drought in international sports competitions had been too long to do our national psyche any good.

As in our political scene, the problem with Philippine sports appears to be our politicians. They have no sense of patriotism. Everything to them is about making a personal fortune. Our national sports associations are a shameful lot.

There had been stories of how our potential gold medal winners are shabbily treated by the national sports associations. No real money is being spent for the training of our athletes, some of them actually live in despicable conditions and subsisting on meager allowances. The big money is often wasted by sports officials.

Worse, when some of our best athletes manage to make it to the top in international competitions on their own, like the recent example of our dragon boat team, some idiot of a sports official sneered that the team is composed of old people who should retire. If there is any shame left among them, each and every one of the sports officials currently holding office in our NSAs and even the Olympic committee should resign after this dismal showing in Indonesia.

The time has come for us to get serious about sports. We have limited resources so that we have to think hard and just choose five or six sporting events where we have competitive advantage and put all our efforts in bringing our athletes into world class status there. And in lieu of the corrupt and useless sports officials we have today, I suggest we assign six of the country’s top taipans to be responsible for one sport each.

I have no idea what sporting events we can have some competitive advantage in but maybe the gold medal winners in the last SEAG should provide some indicators. We won gold medals in billiards, bowling, chess, bridge (I didn’t realize that is a sport) and taekwondo.

Other than taekwondo, none of these seem to be too physical. So maybe we should also consider other sportswhere we used to win gold medals but where we now underperform… like swimming, track and field and judo. Boxing should probably be in the list too.

It really is all about competitive advantage. That’s our problem too in the economic sector where we lost our competitive advantage in manufacturing. We focused on BPOs and are doing great there. Our professional sports officials wouldn’t know how to produce world class athletes if their lives depended on it. We need people like our taipans, men who have proven themselves in the world of business to do something to boost national pride by getting involved in sports.

Manny Pangilinan, Henry Sy Jr., Lance Gokongwei, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Gabby Lopez and maybe even Ramon Ang can all take one sport each and stake their company and family reputation on producing world class competitors for the next Asian Games, Olympics or even SEAG.

I am sure a business model can be devised so that they can profit from it as well. But that is not as important as getting the Pinoys to believe in themselves… to prove that we are better than our embarrassing 6th place finish in a narrow field of 11 competing countries.

If we cannot do anything to make our performance in international competitions respectable, we should just skip going altogether. There is no sense in reinforcing the notion we already have deeply ingrained in our subconscious about our worsening national mediocrity. There is only one Manny Pacquiao today. Maybe there will be a Nonito Donaire soon to help boost our sagging national morale. But we need a whole lot more and not just in boxing.

I want to believe that no one of our incompetent and shameless sports officials could afford to ignore P-Noy so it is important that P-Noy should take the lead in launching a crash program to save Philippine sports. The fruits of such an endeavor may not be realized during his term but he could leave a legacy that will live on.

In a sense, winning laurels in sports competition is at the same level as having a civilized NAIA terminal… it is all about national pride. Without national pride, what are we as a people?