GYMNASTICS chief Cynthia Carrion, a member of the Philippine Olympic Committee Executive Board, yesterday said she abstained from the board decision to suspend the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association, fearing the decision would set a “dangerous precedent.”
“I abstained because the mediation between pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena and Patafa (with the Philippine Sports Commission) is not yet over. I told this to Mikee (Cojuangco-Jaworski, International Olympic Committee Executive Board member) and she agreed with me,” Carrion said.
Carrion, the POC treasurer and Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president, made her sentiments known during a press conference organized by Patafa regarding the decision by the POC board led by President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino to suspend the track body last March 17.
“As much as possible, I don’t want to be involved in anything that has to do with politics,” Carrion said, alluding to the time athletics chief Philip Ella Juico and Tolentino contested the POC top post after boxing head Ricky Vargas resigned in early 2019 due to personal reasons.
Tolentino beat Juico 24-20 in the polls held on July 28, 2019 at the Century Park Sheraton to serve the remaining term of Vargas.
The POC board’s action came in the wake of Patafa’s decision not to endorse Obiena to the last world indoor meet in Belgrade, Serbia and the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games in May pending the result of the mediation talks initiated by PSC Chairman Butch Ramirez.
Juico invoked the autonomy and independence of the National Sports Association in its action involving Obiena, buttressed by the Feb. 10 letter of World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, who upheld Patafa’s authority over the sport in the country while considering the Obiena issue an internal matter.
“We are not directly under the POC but answerable in our actions and decisions to our international federation,” Juico pointed out, adding that both World Athletics and the IOC were aware and constantly updated by Patafa on the developments involving the controversy.
There was no immediate response from the POC.
Weightlifting chief Monico Puentevella, who also joined the briefing, elaborated on Carrion’s statement that what the POC board did “might just burn all (the POC) of us down one of these days. The whole house can be burnt over just one athlete (Obiena).”
He reiterated his proposal for the POC to withdraw its declaration of Juico as persona non grata, the imminent Patafa suspension, and the reinstatement of Obiena to the national track and field team.
Patafa Chairman Rep. Rufus Rodriguez fumed over the POC board’s action, saying: “What the POC board did was premature, whimsical, and arbitrary because we in the Patafa are still in the mediation process involving Obiena. This was without due process.”
Frank Elizalde, the former IOC representative to the Philippines and considered as an elder statesman in local sports, had a cheeky remark about the Patafa-Obiena brouhaha.
“We’re making mountains out of mole hills. One solitary athlete (Obiena) seems to be the flavor of the month, and everybody has to bow down to accede to his activities. Is that logical? Figure that out. That is all I have to say,” Elizalde said.
POC Chairman Steve Hontiveros, who also joined the briefing, saluted Patafa for holding its ground despite the pressure of the POC board.
“If this happened to a small NSA, wala na ‘yan. Porke kalaban mo, dudurugin mo na,” noted Hontiveros, also the president of the International Bowling Federation and Philippine Bowling Congress.
Philippine Squash Association Robert Bachmann summed up the gravity of the situation in a statement.
“This all I have to stay everyone, it started with an error and poor lapse of judgment, by a young athlete (Obiena). It happens to the best of us. The error stayed on for three years and then developed into a mistake. Mistakes are not inherently bad. What counts is how we view and react to them,” Bachmann said.
“The wrong and ill-advised responses of many in what started as a simple error has brought us to this point: a national sports crisis. A total disregard of the core values of the Olympics and the autonomy of the NSA and the disruption of the Olympic movement in the Philippines. There is no other recourse now but for World Athletics and the IOC to intervene. God bless everyone. Pray for the POC,” he said.
