MANILA -- Team Philippines reinforced its commitment to bring the delegation straight to the top of the 30th Southeast Asian Games with their continuous cooperation with Chef de Mission (CDM) and Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William Ramirez’s initiatives for the delegation.
Eleven sports associations were consulted on Tuesday as Ramirez’s secretariat continues to establish the status of the different sports’ status of preparation for the biennial meet.
The meeting is the first in a series of in-depth consultations headed by a PSC Commissioner per cluster.
Commissioner Ramon Fernandez presided Monday’s cluster meeting. The other clusters are scheduled to meet the whole day of Thursday.
“We have to cover a lot of ground and we are heartened by the cooperation of everyone,” said Ramirez referring to lively and honest exchange of ideas among the national sports association representatives.
NSAs of boxing, pencak silat, wrestling, skateboarding, sambo, muaythai, wushu, judo, karatedo and arnis were all represented. Only three groups were unable to join the session.
“Just be open and let us know what you need” Fernandez told the group when they started the meeting, following Ramirez’s pronouncements that the agency will support their requirements as much as the PSC can.
The general consensus was the importance that foreign training plays in the overall success of their teams.
The PSC commissioners have thrown their support behind their Chairman as soon as Ramirez accepted the CDM position last month.
With the Philippine Olympic Committee still unable to name Ramirez’s Deputy Chef de Mission, PSC Commissioners Arnold Agustin, Celia Kiram, Charles Maxey and Fernandez have stepped up their engagements with NSAs under their cluster to expedite the CDM’s work for Team Philippines.
Monty Mendigoria, president of the Skateboarding and Roller Sports Association of the Philippines expressed his appreciation of the PSC and the delegation secretariat’s efforts citing in his social media post how the coordination efforts speed up movement of their requests.
With only 164 days to go before the country officially welcomes guests from the 10 other SEAG Federation member-countries, the country’s delegation is giving their very best to claim overall championship, which was last attained when the Philippines hosted the Games in 2005. (PR)
