Rules and functions get clear lines and definition – Ramirez.
Amid the mudslinging and name-calling, the Philippine Sports Commission believes that the ongoing conflict involving the government agency and the Philippine Olympic Committee has its plus side.
“Conflict gives us a clear line where rules and functions of the POC and the PSC are defined,” said PSC chairman William ‘Butch’ Ramirez from Cebu City yesterday.
Ramirez insists the POC should not blame the PSC for dipping its fingers in the affairs of the national athletes and coaches owing to its mandate based on law.
“We have visitorial and supervisory powers and the allowances of coaches and athletes emanate from the PSC,” said Ramirez as the island-hopping consultative meeting of the PSC goes to Davao City.
The PSC pays for the electricity and utilities of all national sports associations and even that of the POC.
“We pays for the POC’s electricity, water and their rental (at the Philsports in Pasig) is free courtesy of the PSC,” he said.
“Almost all the NSAs are staying in our offices for free, water, lights, condition, janitor, security and based on the constitution and state policy we have all the right to get involved, interfere and meddle.”
Ramirez believes that the POC and the NSAs have been used to handling their affairs by themselves the past 27 years.
“For the first time, the PSC is going to implement what’s in the law,” said Ramirez.
POC president Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco had assailed the PSC for meddling, saying that the PSC’s main job is to fund as he was one of the signatories to its creation in 1990 when he was still a Tarlac congressman.
But Ramirez feels that the PSC is more than just a funding agency.
“We have the right to meddle because by law, we are the ones giving funds so why is it that we don’t have the right to meddle?”
The feud between the two groups have escalated to a point where commissioner Mon Fernandez has bared plans of filing a libel case against Cojuangco for statements made when the 82-year-old POC chief appeared during the weekly PSA Forum.
But, according to Fernandez, the case won’t be filed if Cojuangco does three things: retract his statement, issue a public apology and step down as POC president.