BY NICK GIONGCO
An alliance involving business conglomerates, the government and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) is in the offing as it aims to uplift the country’s sporting affairs.
POC Chairman Ricky Vargas said during the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum webcast on Tuesday that the establishment of the Philippine Business for Sports Development (PBSF) is a brainchild of business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan.
“This is an initiative of MVP, an aggrupation of businesses, private corporations that will form each other into a foundation and will try to help sports,” said Vargas.
“MVP has this vision of putting this up, which will not compete with the Philippine Sports Commission and POC but will probably work out together with that. The dream of private, government and the Olympics (working together),” said Vargas.
The initial meeting proved promising as the by-laws and constitution were in place, according to Vargas,
“Inabot lang ng lockdown,” he said.
Still, the union between the stakeholders in the public and private sector should only produce positive results.
“It’s amazing…An MVP legacy if he is able to do this and I’m excited to be working on that project. This, in itself, will help our athletes in their development.”
Vargas said the MVP Sports Foundation, which is already in operations lending a hand to basketball and boxing and a bevy of marquee sports and some lesser-known as well.
But the proposed PBSF will be of a wider scope as it “will include private corporations who share the same vision to be part of it,” said Vargas, who is putting his efforts behind its launch.
Since he will be devoting much of his time to the PBSF’s creation, Vargas is ruling out the possibility of participating in the elections of the POC this year or next.
“Wala na ako balak tumakbo because I will get involved in this,” he added.
