Swimming rivals smoke peace pipe

By Jerome Lagunzad

Finally setting their egos and differences aside for the greater good of the entire Philippine swimming community, the Philippine Swimming Inc. opened its doors for a long-sought unification with former rival Philippine Swimming League.

Represented by its current president Ral Rosario and three-time Olympian Akiko Thomson-Guevarra, PSI, the country’s national sports association, yesterday extended an olive branch in what PSL president Susan Papa described as a “historic moment” amid a tense and messy situation of the aquatic sport in the country.

“We appreciate this unification,” said Papa, a former national team star who was accompanied by PSL secretary-general Dra. Susan Benasa, during the presser held at the Behrouz Persian Cuisine Restaurant in Timog, Quezon City.

More than anything else, Papa admitted that the unification could augur well for all swimming stakeholders since all PSL-accredited swimmers will finally get the opportunity to join their fellow PSI hopefuls in the formation of future national teams.

“This will mend the community together and hopefully begin a new era for swimming,” said Rosario.

Rosario admitted that the encouraging development should be a timely tonic to the local swimming community following the recent decision of the Philippine Olympic Committee not to give due recognition to appointed PSI head Lani Velasco, the right-hand man of former swimming chief Mark Joseph.

“Hopefully, this will bring a broken community together,” he said. “The issue with PSL is a long standing issue for PSI and I think it’s time to bring it to an end. It’s time, if you wanna call it, a new era to Philippine swimming. We should do it for the benefit of all swimmers and the whole community.”

For the longest time under the watch of dethroned POC chief Peping Cojuangco, the country’s swimming representatives to the Southeast Asian Games and the Asian Games have come from PSI despite the fact that the PSL, composed of 150 clubs nationwide, have a bigger pool of talents.

That great divide weighed down on the country’s showing as the Filipino tankers have failed to bring home a gold medal in the last five SEA Games editions since a former team collected four gold, six silver and one bronze medals during the 2009 meet in Vientiane, Laos.

Papa is hoping the unified PSI-PSL group will eventually bear golden fruits for the national team. “We don’t have any intention of being a national sports association, whatsoever. I’ve been very clear on that and I’ve been very consistent that we don’t have any intention to be an NSA and we leave that to Ral,” she said.