ABAP executive rips SEAG judging

BANGKOK, Thailand — The Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (ABAP) has expressed displeasure over the officiating and judging of the bouts in the 33rd Southeast Asian Games following the semifinal exits of Olympians Nesthy Petecio and Hergie Bacyadan.

ABAP secretary general Marcus Manalo called for the sport to display integrity after what he deemed unfair judging and scoring that resulted in Petecio’s controversial 3-2 split decision loss to Hasanah Huswatan of Indonesia.

“The sport really has to be better in terms of integrity. Otherwise, maybe we don’t really deserve to be in the Olympics beyond 2028,” said Manalo after the national boxing team split its assignments on Saturday.

“We can’t show to the world that we have integrity when it comes to refereeing and judging.”

Manalo believes Petecio’s bout in the women’s 63-kilogram semifinals should have been a 5-0 unanimous decision win but instead suffered a tough loss that denied the Olympian a chance of advancing to the gold medal round.

“Nesthy’s loss was very surprising because I thought that she clearly won the last round. I wasn't even worried about the result. I was really expecting a unanimous (decision),” the youthful boxing official said.

“But still, it went 3-2 split decision for the Indonesian. This is not new in boxing, unfortunately. But its part of the things that you have to deal with.”

Manalo stressed that ABAP won’t have qualms accepting defeat as long as it is fair but revealed that the decision not only came as a shock for the Philippine team but also to Thailand’s officials and, reportedly, even Indonesia’s.

“It won’t matter if the Indonesian was aggressive in the last round or if she was throwing accurate punches that were landing. But in terms of volume, in terms of accuracy, she was the same as Nesthy. So there’s no basis for the judges to give the last round to the Indonesian,” Manalo argued.

“Even the Thai officials couldn’t believe the result. Reportedly, even the Indonesian sports minister was surprised by the result. Unfortunately, that's how it is in boxing.”