Its funds rerouted, the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) on Wednesday night reached out to Malacanang to seek additional budget for its management of the 30th SEA Games.

Phisgoc chairman Alan Peter Cayetano sat down with Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea late Wednesday to request for a P1 billion budget which he could use for the ad hoc committee’s operations.

This was after Congress’s bicameral committee slashed the SEA Games hosting budget from P7.5 billion to P5 billion after the final deliberation. The amount is now lodged under the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).

Also in the same meeting with Medialdea were PSC chairman William “Butch” Ramirez, Philippine Olympic Committee president Rickie Vargas, his assistant Patrick Gregorio and POC chairman Bambol Tolentino as well as representatives from the Commission on Audit (CoA) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

The undersecretaries from both government agencies briefed the sports officials about the intricacies of the rules that bind the use and spending of government money.

Cayetano also heads the Phisgoc Foundation, which would receive the P1 billion he requested from Medialdea.

Medialdea, however, asked the DBM if it could grant the additional fund. The DBM said it would try its best to look for the money for Cayetano.

Cayetano is no longer qualified to receive government funding following his resignation from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last October. He used to be the Foreign Affairs Secretary.

Phisgoc is also not in a perfect position to receive government fund as it is just an ad hoc committee especially created for the country’s hosting of the biennial meet.

That is why instead of allowing Cayetano’s DFA or the Phisgoc to handle the P5-billion SEA Games budget, lawmakers transferred the amount to the PSC for disbursement based on the accounting rules and regulations of the CoA.

With the SEA Games budget reduced to P5 billion, Cayetano admitted that they have to look for fund elsewhere just to come up with the biggest, grandest staging of the prestigious 11-nation tournament ever.

“What used to be a hill that Phisgoc had to climb is now a mountain,” said Cayetano.

“If the reduction is just 10 to 20 percent, we can easily scale down. But with 33 percent, it’s really hard,” he added.

So far, the organizing body’s payroll amounts to P7.2 million a month with its top executives receiving P300,000 to P350,000 in monthly salary.

Several competition managers, however, protested the slash in their monthly allowance. They were promised P41,000 monthly but were only paid P11,250 with a tax deduction of P1,250.

“At the Competition Managers Meeting last 5 November, we were informed that we will receive P41,000 per month starting 1 January. This was despite the fact that we had been working on the SEA Games arrangements since July 2018,” said a competition manager who requested anonymity.

“Today, we signed a contract that indicated a salary of P25,000 per month from 1 January 2019 with no explanation as to why it had been reduced.”

“When we went to the cashier, we were given P11,250 and were asked to sign as receiving a payment covering 16 January to 31 January.”