It’s been eight long years for me as a fencing dad.

When my youngest son took up fencing in 2018, I didn’t know how the journey would look, or what support from a parent was needed for a son who was about to enter this niche sport. From his early training sessions in a basement fencing club in an old Makati mall to podium finishes in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) as a University of the Philippines (UP) athlete, the years taught us lessons both rewarding and, at times, regretful.

Fencing has a peculiar elegance — the whole sport compressed into a narrow strip, decided in fractions of a second, won or lost on a single, clean touch. It rewards precision over power, discipline over noise. Which is what makes its struggles here so frustrating: this is a sport built for exactly the kind of quiet excellence we claim to want more of, yet it keeps getting undercut by problems that have nothing to do with footwork or blade work at all.

Start with the obvious. Fencing here remains a boutique sport. Beside basketball, volleyball, or even badminton, the gap is stark — fewer clubs, fewer coaches, limited school exposure, next to almost no media airtime. Even in the UAAP, not every member school fields a team; since 1996, only five — University of the East, De La Salle University, University of Santo Tomas, UP, and Ateneo de Manila University — get to regularly compete. In the National Collegiate Athletic Association, golf has recently overtaken fencing as a demonstration sport, proof that grassroots traction still isn’t there.

That scarcity compounds itself: a small talent pool produces a shallow bench, one that struggles against fencing powers like Japan, South Korea, or China. Add a price tag most sports don’t carry — weapons, body cords, International Fencing Federation (FIE)-certified uniforms, masks, travel, fees — and talent gets filtered out before it gets a real shot. The fact that training hubs are heavily clustered in Metro Manila doesn’t help; a promising fencer from the provinces is forced to make a hard choice between relocating or falling behind.

That’s the structural half. The governance half is thornier, and familiar to anyone who has watched the Philippine sports administration up close. Selection controversies — most visibly the replacement of a national athlete just before the 2025 Southeast Asian Games — create clutter and noise that shouldn’t hinder the sport’s development.

Officials cited attendance and documentation; critics cried favoritism. Both can be true in fragments, but such disputes rarely stay contained. They spill into ethics complaints, board-level feuds, frozen funds, and public accusations that leave athletes wondering whose interests are actually being served.

Yet, a breath of fresh air has finally found its way into the Philippine Fencing Association (PFA) since that storm. A good friend from our La Salle Green Hills days and a fellow lawyer, Adolfo “Ompong” Gonzalez — himself a former national fencer — has quietly assumed the PFA presidency following a recent election.

Over coffee and pastry, we recalled what the PFA has actually built — global FIE affiliation since 1967, athletes sent to Asian and world stages, SEA Games medals, and youth programs that keep the pipeline alive against considerable odds. That track record matters but the challenge remains daunting for a sport this mature, but remains optimistic that a podium finish on the Asian or world stage is still within reach.

After our candid conversation, we agreed — probably because we’re both lawyers — that a return to good governance is the reset this sport needs. Transparency in training and certifying coaches, officials and clubs; avoidance of conflicts in interest, fairness in selection and appeals; adequate funding; an end to leadership factionalism — and none of this is peculiar to fencing. It surrounds other national sports associations in this country as well.

Fencing rewards the athlete who commits fully to the touch rather than hedging mid-lunge. Its administrators would do well to fence the sport the same way.