THE Philippine Sports Commission board led by Chairman Butch Ramirez yesterday approved to bankroll the national delegation that will compete in the 31st Vietnam Southeast Asian Games in May, according to Commissioner Ramon Fernandez.
“The board approved the funding of the Philippine contingent during our board meeting, which will include both Class A and B athletes, coaches and supplemental staff,” said Fernandez, who is also the chief of mission of the delegation.
Since this will be the country’s first major overseas competition after the 2019 Philippine SEA Games, Fernandez said the board had allowed athletes who were unable to meet the bronze qualifying standard to join the team.
“We took into account that not all our national athletes were able to train and compete properly during the pandemic so this was a factor in considering to fund the entire national team,” he explained.
This means that some squads like the women’s volleyball squad, which finished fourth overall in the 30th SEA Games, will no longer need to look for private sponsors to compete in the games scheduled May 12 to 23 in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and neighboring areas.
Fernandez said he could not say how much the government sports agency would spend for the SEA Games participation considering the current condition worldwide caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago.
Comprising close to 1,000 athletes, coaches and officials, the national squad will compete in 29 of the 30 sports calendared in the Vietnam Games, which will the second time the communist country will host the meet since its inaugural staging in the cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) in 2003.
Some of the teams like football and members of the secretariat will have to go earlier than the rest because of their competition schedule as well as laying down the groundwork for the rest of the delegates that will arrive on a staggered basis.
Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino will lead a small delegation that includes triathlon chief Tom Carrasco and POC deputy secretary general Carl Sambrano that will attend the first actual meeting of the chiefs of mission of all 11 participating nations in Hanoi starting tomorrow.
Tolentino and his team members will be given the chance to inspect the venues that will be used for the Vietnam Games, which was postponed from last November as the wave of COVID-19 cases swept across the region in mid-2021
The POC chief acknowledged that Vietnam was experiencing a dramatic surge in COVID cases but remained optimistic the SEA Games could still proceed in bubble-type conditions, similar to what was done in last year’s Tokyo Summer Games and the Winter Games in Beijing, China last month.
Tolentino acknowledged the national campaigners would face an uphill battle in their bid to retain the overall crown after emerging on top of the standings in the Philippine edition with a rich harvest of 149 gold, 117 silver and 121 bronze medals.
