Sports and social media

I ADMIT I go to social media now to get a better feel of how people are reacting to what is happening in the local world of sports. And believe me I do get a lot of comments that would range from the sublime to ridiculous, to the intellectual, with some wanting to sound intellectual at least, to very emotional and rude ones.

A lot I notice simply comment without really knowing the subject matter and when criticized, reacts “violently”. But there are those that I find worthy of reacting to and even carrying on an online conversation.

Perry Mequi, the former Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman and now a retired academe, is in his 80s but he is one of the most active in talking about sports and one can end up liking and admiring him or else not liking him at all when he starts criticizing and calling on a lot of sports officials.

But to his credit, he gets a lot of reactions too that sometimes what he starts ends up with a positive result. A case in point is when he was critical of the Philippine Taekwondo Association (PTA) for what he says is the national sports association’s monopolistic approach in developing the sport, resulting to complaints from some parents whose kids were not allowed to compete for not being PTA registered members, and other related complaints.

Now, PSC Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez has set a dialogue with the taekwondo community to listen to their concerns and hopefully, something positive comes out of it.

I also enjoyed replying to former Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) player and now PSC Commissioner Mon Fernandez, one of the most vocal opponents of ex-Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr.

Mon releases a lot of information online regarding the alleged anomalies in the POC and certain NSAs and I can say Mon is more right than wrong a lot of times though he becomes impulsive at times.

But as far as intentions to improve sports in the country, I have to commend Mon for his continuing efforts.

Then there are two guys who are into athletics namely Enzo Williams, who was even employed by then PSC Commissioner Jolly Gomez to be his researcher, and Raul Banzon, a former collegiate track athlete who pioneered in bringing plyometrics here as part of an effort to integrate sports science in the local world of sports.

Raul’s mother Nenita is a brother of former Ambassador Paco Delgado and with whom I worked with sometime in the 80’s as an HR Manager.

And I respect the comments I read that are posted by these two guys and they know what they are talking about and they have facts to support their side.

Both are in agreement that the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (Patafa) needs to do a lot of changes if it has to live up to its role as the primary mover of athletics in the Philippines. And I agree with them after seeing the result of the recent Asian Games where our athletes, who were supposed to deliver medals, were simply shut out by their regional opponents particularly the Thais, Malaysians and Indonesians.

Worse is that our athletes  did not even came up with new records or personal best in their respective events. It was something that Enzo says he predicted but was ignored by Patafa, now headed by Philip Ella Juico. According to Enzo, instead of improving, the rankings of Filipino athletes even went down prior to the start of the Asiad and we are talking of 13 athletes in this case who were sent but did not deliver.

Athletics is one sport that is easy to measure as to its progress and when you even have a foreign coach working for you, expectations will even go higher. And if what I read after the Asian Games that one spin from Patafa was that the Asiad was a good tune-up for the Southeast Asian Games next year I give more credit to Enzo that there must really be something wrong in the way Patafa is developing the sport and its athletes.

Raul, on his side, cited that Ayala Corporation has even pulled out its sponsorship deal with Patafa also after the Asiad. I would assume, if true, because of the NSA’s failure to deliver in the Asian Games. He also mentioned the world-class sports facilities built by Ayala in Cavite but it is not getting the attention and usage that it deserves from national athletes, particularly in athletics.

Leadership for Raul is the key factor but he says it will probably take another generation to fix all the problems in sports as the present leaders, well most of them, are not going to let go of their positions.

To which I can only agree that when it comes to sports development, it is not the athletes who lead, it is the officials. The athletes will simply follow the direction and programs set by their leaders. Unfortunately, how many sports officials can you name who would have an honest to goodness working plan in developing their sport?

Enough said.