Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino calls for fair officiating in the first Southeast Asian (SEA) Youth Plus Games in March 2028.

Tolentino said he wants to make a strong first impression on the young athletes by not exposing them to biased officiating and unfair calls early in their international careers in light of the country’s experience in the 33rd SEA Games in Thailand last December.

Manila will be the first host of this new event that will mainly focus on sports that will be featured in the Olympics.

“We’ve raised that issue several times during meetings but it’s always up to the host country. They usually just say, ‘noted, noted.’ That’s a perennial problem,” Tolentino said.

“Unless we create a new organization, that’s really the only solution. That’s why I started the Plus Youth Games. We are the first edition, and we are the founding president of the Southeast Asian Plus Youth Games.”

“Hopefully, our youth will experience fair judging early on. Let’s start with the youth so they won’t grow up experiencing unfairness.”

The Philippines finished the recent SEA Games with 50 golds, 73 silvers and 154 bronze medals in the prestigious biennial meet and ranked sixth in the overall medal tally.

Fans noticed how the recent SEA Games set the rules to favor the Thais, last year’s hosts.

For starters, Thailand did not allow naturalized players for men’s and women’s 5x5 basketball and saw countries scrambling to assemble their respective squads at the last minute.

In boxing, the Thais made it to the finals 16 out of 17 times, raising suspicions of possible bias on the host country.

Filipino gymnasts John Ivan Cruz and Aleah Finnegan almost didn’t win their gold medals in the men’s and women’s vault, respectively if it weren’t for the intervention of the POC and the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines to include them.