PARIS. – Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richard Bachmann will take his cue from Malacanang once the Supreme Court-ordered incomes from the Philippine Amusement and Games Corp. and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office starts streaming into the PSC.
“We will await our instructions from Malacanang in going about the process once these incomes from PAGCOR and the PCSO start getting remitted to the PSC,” said Bachmann of the SC ruling that will immensely boost the government sports agency’s coffers.
The PSC is an agency that falls under the Office of the President.
Deciding on the writ of mandamus filed by Rain or Shine coach and former Pampanga Rep. Yeng Guiao, the High Court last May ordered PAGCOR to restore the full five percent of the PSC from its gross income as required under Republic Act 6847, the law that created the PSC in 1990.
The decision, penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and concurred unanimously by all 15 SC Justices, led by Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, also ordered the PCSO to remit 30 percent of its income from six lotteries to the PSC since 2006.
Guiao, who filed the case with the SC in 2016 when he was still the representative of the First District of Pampanga, estimated that the amount to be remitted to the PSC had ballooned to at least P25 billion based on his own personal estimate.
He also stressed that these monies should be protected and safeguarded from “corrupt sports leaders” and go to the athletes and proper programs in need of funds.
Bachmann said this is what the PSC would do once the huge amounts start coming into the PSC’s National Sports Development Fund.
“These funds will be put to their optimum use to benefit our athletes, coaches, international training, facilities and grassroots programs in the proper manner so that they will not be squandered or wasted,” he said.
Given that they and their athletes will be among the biggest beneficiaries of this development, National Sports Associations must now comply with the PSC’s requirements and policies, including proper and prompt liquidation of funds and submitting programs before getting any support, Bachmann stressed.
“If our NSAs are unable to follow or comply with the PSC’s policies and come up with sound programs, they will not be able to tap into these huge funds that are now available to them. It will be their own loss, not ours,” Bachmann said.
