Answers needed

Filipino athletes pulled off a miracle when they clinched the overall title in the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

At first, it was unbelievable.

But when John Chicano and Kim Mangrobang kicked off the gold rush, every one followed. Caloy Yulo clinched two gold medals in men’s artistic gymnastics, Hidilyn Diaz and the young Kristel Macrohon did their shares in gymnastics. Agatha Wong shone in gymnastics and the rest of Team Philippines dominated the field.

Even the vaunted track and field team of Philip Ella Juico made an amazing run as it was eyeing only six gold medals but ended up with a harvest of 11 to emerge as the most successful national sport association among all Olympic sports.

Other Olympic sports that made a mark were taekwondo and boxing, which grabbed eight and seven gold medals, respectively. Meanwhile, the non-Olympic sports that dominated the field were arnis, dancesport and obstacle racing. The arnisadores asserted their dominance when they plucked 14 gold medals while dancesport had 10 and obstacle racing had six in their first ever SEA Games appearance.

All in all, the Philippines had 149 gold, 118 silver and 120 bronze medals to claim the overall crown for the first time since ruling the 23rd SEA Games in 2005.

The country also emerged as the topnotcher

in Olympic sports with 79 gold medals while Vietnam, the host country in the next biennial meet in 2021, had 74 and powerhouse Thailand copped 66.

So yes, Filipino athletes did deliver.

But there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed.

Prior the start of the biennial

meet, an avalanche of complains

surfaced. From Cambodians who

were seen sleeping on the carpet to

Thais having no choice but to train

in the streets, it appeared that the

Philippine Southeast Asian Games

Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) was not ready to host such a massive event.

Even our own athletes were not spared.

Players from the national women’s football team had to wait for more than three hours at the lobby of their hotel because the organizers failed to coordinate the time of their arrival. The following morning, a bigger problem emerged as the head coach went on national television to admit that they were served kikiam, egg and rice for breakfast.

Yes, it was said to be a kikiam, a lowly street food that can be bought for a mere 10 pesos per stick from your favorite sidewalk vendors.

The cheapness of a kikiam is a sharp contrast to how much the government spent to make the SEA Games a success.

In fact, of the P6.5-billion government fund, the organizers reportedly spent P55 million for the cauldron that has no definite function other than to serve as a mere symbol of the opening and closing of the tournament.

The cauldron was so insignificant that Sen. Franklin Drilon, in his interpellation during the budget deliberation of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) last month, strongly questioned why Phisgoc had to spend P55 million for a “kaldero.”

Now that the Games were over, the flame of the kaldero — or cauldron if you want to call it — had been put out, but the structure will remain standing at the New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac serving as a symbol of lavishness and excessive

spending of the organizing committee.

That’s why we were not surprised when

Ombudsman Samuel Martires announced that he already formed a seven-man fact finding body that would look into the SEA Games fiasco couple of days before the closing ceremonies.

He said that the investigation will cover everybody, including Phisgoc chairman Alan Peter Cayetano, and would start working as soon as possible to come up with a resolution before the year ends.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson picked it up, saying that the success of the athletes should not mask the failures of Phisgoc and how it spent the massive P6.5-billiion budget.

For one, Lacson was hot on finding out the reason why a purely private firm like the Phisgoc Foundation, Inc. managed to draw money from a government agency such as the PSC. For him, it is something that should be looked into as it has striking similarities with how businesswoman

Janet Lim Napoles operated his non-government organizations.

Lacson is right. There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered.

We need to know how Phisgoc was formed, why the Philippine Olympic Committee executive board has no say about the hosting despite being the franchise owner of the Games and who are the people behind the organizing body and their respective backgrounds and expertise in hosting such a massive event.

There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered.

We should understand that the athletes became successful because the PSC poured P1.5 billion to finance their foreign training and exposure as well as provide them with adequate facilities at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, Ninoy Aquino Stadium, Philsports Arena and Teachers Camp.

They asserted their dominance because they trained hard and fought with pride in front of their countrymen.

The glory belongs to them — not to the organizers.

The organizers have nothing to do with their victories.

The victory of the athletes shouldn’t hide the real reasons why a lowly kikiam was served and why an expensive kaldero was erected. As President Duterte said: An event with a massive budget like the SEA Games should have no room for error. Everything has to be perfect.

Now, Phisgoc has the opportunity to clear its name and convince the public that the country’s hosting was a success.