THE Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association Administrative Committee yesterday said pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena allegedly falsified liquidation documents involving funds given to him by the association intended for his coach and recommended that he be dropped from the national team.
After deliberating on the issue for nearly two months, the committee also recommended that Obiena be sued for estafa, a criminal offense, for the 6,000 euros (around P360,000) that Patafa advanced to him for the coaching fees of his Ukrainian mentor, Vitaly Petrov, from May to August 2019.
The committee’s findings and recommendations were disclosed during an online conference organized by Patafa attended by athletics President Philip Ella Juico and Chairman and House Deputy Speaker Rufus Rodriguez, along with other committee members.
The committee also recommended that Patafa file an ethics complaint against Petrov with World Athletics after he recanted his previous statements that he had not been paid based on his conversation with Juico on Sept. 9, 2021.
“He (Petrov) made us into a collecting agent,” Juico said, noting that Petrov eventually received his wages in full after the Patafa started an inquiry into the controversy.
“The board has discussed this issue thoroughly and approved the committee’s findings and recommendations in toto and will be implemented by the board,” Rodriguez said.
The committee said that based on the pieces of evidence it had collected and gathered, “a total amount of 85,026.80 euros was credited to Mr. Petrov from September 2020 to November 9, 2021. However, 66 percent of this amount or 56,147,92 was only paid from November 4 to November 9, 2021.”
The inquiry showed that Petrov, the head coach of the World Athletics elite training camp in Formia, Italy where Obiena has been training since 2016, acknowledged that he only received 3,000 euros in September 2020 in wages that were due him as Obiena’s mentor.
The committee said that “EJ Obiena misappropriated 61,026,80 euros (P3.36 million) which were released to him by the PATAFA/PSC as payment of coaching fee of Mr. Petrov but which were not paid to him as of August 2021.”
It also found that that Mrs. Obiena had “misappropriated the amount of P624,116.76 she claimed from the PSC under the pretext that it is the reimbursement of the coaching fee paid to Mr. Petrov from the months of January to March 2019.”
“Considering that the first payment of 3,000 euros (P174,330) was made only in September 2020, the acknowledgment letters from May to November 2019 with the electronic signature of Mr. Petrov are ALL falsified. These acknowledgment letters made it appear that Mr. Petrov received his coaching fees from May to November 2019 when, in fact, he did not receive any fee for the said period,” the report said.
The committee also urged Patafa drop Petrov as Obiena’s coach while American businessman James Lafferty, who has been acting as the athlete’s agent and the conduit of Petrov’s payments, be declared “persona non grata” by the association.
Juico said that Obiena had been given the opportunity thrice to appear before the committee last December to explain his side but never did, opting to take his case to the Philippine Olympic Committee’s Ethics Committee.
Obiena had also declined the mediation efforts of the Philippine Sports Commission through the initiative of PSC Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez. Patafa and Juico agreed to the mediation efforts in early December.
Juico said the POC, based on its charter, has no jurisdiction over the issue, saying it’s an internal dispute involving Patafa and one of its athletes.
Juico also said that he and the association had reached out to Obiena several times “but we also have our institutional integrity and personal reputation to protect. It is not just me; it is the Patafa.”
With a hint of regret, Juico said that “he (Obiena) now has to face the consequences which could have been remarkably different had he chosen to believe in people whom he has known for the last several years from his childhood.
“To those who think that this was a personal battle you can see the entire board behind all of these acts. To those who think that winning gold medals and earning commission from tournament winnings and endorsements are the only thing that matter. Morals or medals, how can there be honor in the latter without the former,” he added.
