Competition has turned up a notch in the 29th Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, what with Team Philippines winning its first gold—in women’s marathon, courtesy of Mary Joy Tabal — hours before yesterday’s formal opening. Earlier on, the haul consisted of a silver and two bronzes.
Here’s the all-important question: How should Team Philippines’ performance in this biennial meet be judged?
The question begs for an answer to make up for the lack of accountability among the country’s sports leaders. Debacle after debacle, in past editions of the SEA Games or even the Asian Games and the Olympics, they have always fished for moral victories from the rubble of failed bids.
Worse, some of them, speaking from their lofty posts, trot out the usual excuses: We didn’t get the right breaks. We didn’t have enough funds for athletes’ training.
But the breaks of the game are nationality-blind, as fickle with our Southeast Asian neighbors as they are with us. Why does it seem that the breaks single out the Philippines almost yearly? And funds? That problem has been cited since forever, and the solution should have been figured out by now.
The problem is that there are no standards by which the country’s performance can be judged. Chided for the absence of a stable, viable and long-term sports program, officials turn to the possible gold haul in these competitions, hoping the shine of the medals would deflect public scrutiny. But the gold harvest from this low-level international meet has lately been sparse. And officials turn to the performance of young athletes to try and show that the Philippine sports program is working.
So how to measure Team Philippines’ performance in KL? Through a metric like the medal count, specifically the gold count? Through the promise of up-and-coming athletes as we continue to chase after our ultimate sporting goal—an Olympic gold?
If we go by numbers, the standard seems to have been set. The Philippines won 29 gold medals in the last edition of the SEA Games; anything less would mean utter failure. Yet merely eclipsing that number hardly means overcoming mediocrity.
Consider that host Malaysia is gunning for 111 golds—a target so precise it can be safely said that its sports leaders had determined exactly where to pin that nation’s hopes. On the other hand, Philippine delegation head Cynthia Carrion has pegged the target at 50 golds. A rough estimate, to be sure, but a reasonable measure by which Team Philippines’ stint in the Malaysian capital can be judged.
If we are to deem the SEA Games as breeding ground for future Olympians, then we must measure success by studying our young athletes’ performance, especially if they are competing in measurable sports, and then determine if their progression arc can actually lead to a world-level mark.
Are they young enough? Do their improvements up until the SEA Games show a steady rise toward world standards? If we are ready to quit the obsession to measure ourselves against regional rivals and to focus on the few elite athletes who can compete on the world level, then this is how we will measure our participation in the SEA Games.
Using such a standard comes with a caveat: We should then stop spreading meager financial resources thinly across all sports for political purposes and instead devote the bulk of the funds to targeted disciplines capable of winning the gold.
But sports commissioner Ramon Fernandez, the most vocal critic of Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, thinks the judging should be done both ways: This being one of the more well-funded delegations ever sent to the SEA Games, it’s natural to expect some sort of return on investment from Team Philippines in terms of the medal count. It will also count as an acceptable and meaningful return if the SEA Games can help unearth a young athlete who can be polished into an Olympic gold candidate.
And there is a need to make sure that sports leaders validate their current posts. Cojuangco, for one, has insisted on staying—some say overstaying—on as POC president. He should then be held accountable for how the Philippines performs in the SEA Games.
Whether it’s by medal count or by producing promising talents who can end our Olympic gold drought, it’s time we made loud noise about holding our sports leaders accountable for our teams’ performances overseas.