THE Philippines and other member countries will oppose a move by the Vietnamese organizers of the 31st Southeast Asian Games to postpone the event during the SEA Games Federation Council online meeting today.
“Together with the other SEA Games countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and others we have agreed to disagree with the Vietnamese proposal to postpone the SEA Games,” Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino told the POC general assembly meeting yesterday.
“This will be our united stand during our meeting (of the SEA Games Federation),” Tolentino told POC members during the meeting held simultaneously online at the East Ocean Restaurant in Paranaque.
“Wala pong official announcement regarding the postponement of the SEA Games,” the POC chief said in the wake of overseas news reports that Vietnam is keen on postponing the SEA Games set Nov. 21 to Dec. 2 in Hanoi due to the surge of COVID-19 cases there.
Quoting an unidentified source, the Malaysian news website thevibes.com in an “exclusive” report on Monday, said the “SEA Games in Hanoi is off” in a story written by T. Vignesh.
“They (the Vietnamese SEAG organizers) have written to all the NOCs about the postponement and on June 9, they will have a virtual meeting to elaborate more on the matter,” the anonymous source was quoted as saying.
“A new date has not been decided yet, but I believe that it will be updated at the meeting,” added the source.
The report said Vietnam, which hosted the games in 2003, intends to reschedule its hosting of the regional games to March 2021.
The development was also picked up last Monday by the Singapore Sports Straits Times, which reported that “the 31st SEA Games, which are scheduled to take place from Nov 21 through Dec 2 in Hanoi, looks set to be postponed due to the rising COVID-19 cases in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”
