Distress calls are now being made as the country enters the crucial stretch of its preparation for the 30th Southeast Asian Games.

With the national government still operating on a reenacted budget, sports executives are now pressing the panic button, appealing to President Rodrigo Duterte to step in and save the country from a massive international embarrassment.

The Chief Executive should always be on top of this situation.

When the country first hosted the SEA Games in 1981, President Ferdinand Marcos was very hands-on with his cousin, Michael Keon, who was the chairman of the Project Gintong Alay program.

Marcos built a new track oval in Pasig City called as the University of Life Track and Field Arena, now known as ULTRA, as well as an apartment complex in the adjacent building that served as the Athletes’ Village. Soon, those apartments were turned over to the national government and First Lady Imelda Marcos converted them into a housing project.

The country again hosted the Games in 1991, five years after President Marcos was booted out of power. President Corazon Aquino replaced Gintong Alay with the Philippine Sports Commission in preparation for the biennial meet in 1991.

The teamwork among top government officials, led by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PSC chairman William “Butch” Ramirez and POC president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco rubbed off

to the athletes and they won the overall crown.

On 10 April 1991, Aquino issued Proclamation 711 that declared the “nationwide observance of the Southeast Asian Games year.”

The proclamation also covered the designation of the Manila Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee as an ad hoc body tasked to ensure the success of the regional conclave.

The PSC, for its part, was given a crystal-clear marching order to engage additional revenue-generating activities while non-government organizations like the Philippine Olympic Committee, various national sports associations and other private bodies were requested to lend cooperation to the success of the Games.

Fourteen years later, the country organized the Games anew.

No less than the First Gentleman, Miguel Arroyo, who spearheaded the fund-raising activity to augment the P350-million budget pledged by the

Hold My Beer

Julius Manicad

national government, helped make it a success.

With Arroyo at the helm, the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee drew the support of 27 of the biggest companies in the country to boost the SEA Games war chest to up to P500 million.

The biggest concern facing local sport executives is funding.

The teamwork among top government officials, led by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PSC chairman William “Butch” Ramirez and POC president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco rubbed off to the athletes and they won the overall crown.

The International Olympic Committee commended the POC for successfully hosting the Games with a very limited budget.

But this year’s hosting of the SEA Games is way, way different.

Ranking sports officials are bickering over the roles of the POC, PSC and Phisgoc, which they say are not clearly defined. POC president Ricky Vargas — a ranking Phisgoc executive — was even accused of acting on his own after lending POC fund to the organizing body without the approval of the POC executive board.

Phisgoc also had a sort of an identity crisis as it took charge of the meet’s official outfitter, broadcaster, marketing, transport, security and other SEA Games-related committees without the knowledge of the POC board.

But the biggest concern facing local sport executives is funding.

With lawmakers failing to reach an agreement on the proposed P3.5-trillion budget, President Duterte has yet to formally approve the General Appropriations Act that puts all government projects — including the SEA Games — on hold.

Sure, the PSC has the money, but using what it has would be technical malversation. The only solution is for the President to step in and release a special fund to make both ends meet while the 2019 budget is yet to be signed. He also has to talk to all stakeholders just to knock

some sense into their heads.

He has to be on top.

This is crunch time and sports

officials are already sending distress signals to avert a massive disaster.

SOS!

“Save our SEA Games.”