The massive — and expensive — staging of the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games did not only burn a hole in the government wallet. It also broke the hearts of disabled athletes. Members of the Philippine Paralympic Committee (PPC) were crushed when the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) proposed to move the 10th Asean Para Games from January to March due to lack of fund. PSC chairman William “Butch” Ramirez admitted that the fund intended for the Para Games had been wiped out following the country’s hosting of the biennial meet two weeks ago. For the past two decades, the Asean Para Games are considered as part of the SEA Games tradition. The event is the region’s biggest athletic conclave for persons with disability with 16 sports programmed this year; archery, para athletics, badminton, boccia, chess, cycling, CP (cerebral palsy) football, goalball, judo, para powerlif ting, para swimming, tenpin bowling, table tennis, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball and para triathlon. Para obstacle course racing was also included as demonstration sport. A total of 1,533 athletes would see action this year, surpassing the 1,452 athletes who participated in the Kuala Lumpur meet in 2017. Thailand will have the biggest number of competitors with 317 athletes and 188 officials while Indonesia will deploy 306 athletes. The Philippines, which finished fifth in the previous staging in 2017, will parade 274 athletes and 78 officials while 215 athletes will represent Malaysia. But holding the event early January, or a month after the SEA Games based on the tradition, won’t happen this year. Ramirez said they had to move the event to March, the last month of the first quarter, because they don’t have enough fund to finance the P100-milion budget that the PPC is requesting. Aside from that, time is running out as sports equipment needed for the event take three months to purchase. In short, the barrel already ran dry and the differently abled athletes have nothing more to scrap. This is a stark contrast to what happened in the SEA Games. In a budget request that Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) sent to the PSC, it shows that the successful hosting of the SEA Games came with a hefty price. Aside from the very controversial production of the SEA Games cauldron that amounts to P55.9 million — or more than half of the requested budget for the Para Games — the Phisgoc also spent a total of P73 million for the talent fees of performers in the opening and closing ceremonies. The organizing body headed by House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano also spent P183.5 million for catering services, P23.3 million for the waste management system and P21.6 million for the commemorative medals and other supplies for the volunteers. All in all, Phisgoc’s budget request soared to P6 billion, leaving only P500 million for the PSC to manage during the actual staging of the competition. But what was truly heartbreaking was the manner of the actual staging of the Games. Days before the biennial meet, reports of incompetence and lack of compassion and empathy to both foreign and local athletes surfaced. Members of the Cambodian football team, for one, were seen sleeping on the carpet as the organizers failed to coordinate its time of arrival with the hotel. Same thing happened to the Thailand football team, which had to train in the streets for lack of training venue and the Timor Leste booters who were picked up late from the airport only to be brought to the wrong hotel. Even the home team wasn’t spared. The national women’s football team had to wait for three hours before it could check in. The following morning, the team’s head coach revealed on national television that they were served with kikiam, a lowly pork dumpling that is being sold for mere P10 in the streets of Manila, for breakfast. Although the coach tried to rectify her statement, saying that it was chicken sausage, the damage was done and it was too late for her to take back what she just revealed. We should not forget that there is another event that is equally important as the SEA Games. After the tournament, there were reports of unpaid volunteers, policemen, technical personnel and teachers, putting the organizers in a very tight position on how they would justify their massive spending. Hosting the SEA Games was the jewel in the country’s crown. For two magical weeks, the entire country united and rallied behind the athletes, who repaid their faith by bagging the overall title with 149 gold medals to show. But we should not forget that there is another event that is equally important as the SEA Games. The differently abled athletes were all expecting to compete in January only to find out that the budget intended for them was already gone. It was truly heartbreaking. We hope that the differently abled athletes will use this sorry development as a rallying point to win the overall title.