When will we ever hear this inspiring, national pride-provoking announcement on international TV, “Ladies and gentleman, please stand up for the Philippine National Anthem,” in an Olympic awards ceremony?
Wishful thinking? Not if we start preparing for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics—now! Starting with all officials and members of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) resigning their positions. Sports leaders should be credited for the success of their sports program, but they should also take the responsibility for the country’s dismal showing in the 2012 London Olympics. The flaw here is, their resignation may turn out to be mere “symbolic” as they could very well be reelected or reappointed considering the political realities in the POC and PSC. So we suggest that as a policy, the term of our national sports leaders should end after every Olympics. In this way, we can infuse new blood and new ideas into our sports organizations and programs every four years. A new set of sports leaders should be elected by December 2012 with the main objective of winning a gold medal in Rio.
Compared to many countries that won at least one gold medal each, in terms of resources and population, the Philippines could very well have been one of them. But we didn’t win a single one, not even a silver or bronze. Why?
What should be the game plan to achieve this national dream?
Let us view the winning of an Olympic gold medal as a patriotic national project—in fact, a private-public partnership (PPP) project.
What is needed? Each competitive Olympic sport is currently managed by a National Sports Association (NSA). The NSA should plan a 4-year program with the Southeast Asian Games, the Asiad and Rio Olympics in mind. The program should be submitted to the PPP office for review and project implementation.
Every NSA program should be undertaken by the participating private corporation as a corporate social responsibility project to ensure stability, continuity and consistency in the administration of sports programs within a 4-year span. For example, the basketball “gold” may be assigned to the PLDT group of companies, given that PLDT has been sponsoring national basketball teams for some time now. The selected private firms shall fund, select the coaches and train the athletes of their selected sports.
All related expenses of the private firms, as approved by the PPP office, may be deducted from their tax liabilities as tax credits. The government shall match the the private sector’s investment here. With the private sector using the funds of their Filipino stockholders and the government using the people’s money, the sports PPP will be in reality a project of the Filipino people.
We dream. If we start working on it now, we can transform our dream into a reality.
—DING WENCESLAO,
chair, Advocacy Committee-Luzon,
Philippine Jaycee Senate