THE Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association has agreed anew to participate in the Philippine Sports Commission mediation process regarding its issues with pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena and named a three-man panel led by Patafa President Philip Ella Juico as representatives.
This was contained in a letter dated Jan. 11, Tuesday, addressed to Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez, who urged both parties in the Philippine Sportswriters Association forum last Tuesday to come to the bargaining table and settle the controversy once and for all.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association Board of Directors, the Patafa confirms its participation in the PSC Mediation,” Patafa board member Datu Yusoph Mama wrote.
The local track body also named Atty. Aldrin Cabiles and Alfonso Sta. Clara, a forensic accountant, to the mediation process to be presided over by Ramirez with the help of the Philippine Dispute Resolution Center, Inc.
“With all due respect and as previously communicated in the letter dated January 5, 2022, the Patafa Board has agreed to defer the implementation of the approved recommendations made in the Fact-Finding report dated December 29, 2021 for a period of two weeks, or until Jan. 19, 2022,” Mama wrote.
Based on findings of the Administrative Committee, the Patafa board announced in an online press conference that Obiena had falsified his liquidation report of the financial support given directly to him from May to September 2019, funds that came from the PSC.
This included the salaries meant for the athlete’s Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov, whose signature was allegedly forged in the liquidation documents.
Because of the findings, the probe body recommended that the Tokyo Olympic veteran be dropped from the national team and charged with estafa, Petrov removed as his coach, a case be filed against the mentor with World Athletics, and Dubai-based American businessman James Lafferty, Obiena’s agent, be declared as persona non-grata.
Ramirez warned in the PSA forum that unless Patafa and Obiena, who was given PSC financial aid for his knee surgery, agree to mediation, he would withdraw the P515 million earmarked by Congress for the country’s international competitions this year.
This includes the stints of the Philippines in the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games in May and the Hangzhou Asian Games in China in September.
Ramirez said he felt uneasy that while the government sports agency was pouring in hundreds of millions of pesos to elite athletes, many Filipinos are reeling and suffering from the pandemic as well as typhoon Odette.
