Not so “Lakas” after all

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Well, it’s finally over. And the Philippine sports community had to bite the bullet and accept that we have sank down in rankings among our neighbors in Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian Games ends this weekend with our country at Number Six, probably the lowest we have ever gotten in the competition.

Where are the seventy – at least – gold medals that our sports leaders sounded so sure of reaping just before leaving for Indonesia? As of this writing, the most we could gather were 24 gold medals, and those mostly from individual sports, where teamwork was not called for. The line-up showed our country at Number Six, after Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Thank God, there were Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Timor Leste, behind us. And to think that we were the champions when the games were held in the Philippines a few years ago!

Where are all those athletes now? What happened to our sports programs? How can we blame those sports writers for calling this the “worst” SEAG ever for our country? And where are those sports officials who had bragged that we would, at least, be runner-up? What lame excuses are they trotting out now?

Maybe there are ghosts of past SEAG Games that we have not yet laid to rest, and that is why we are going through this “karma” now. We still remember that scandals and misuse of funds that had been exposed then, and have not been resolved until now.

And then, too, this year’s group had unwittingly allowed themselves to be trapped by such a presumptuous motto as “LAKAS PINAS” which was even insulting to the name of our country. If the other players from other countries understood that “Lakas Pinas” was intended to mean the strength or power of our players, they would probably look at our scores and say “Was that all”?*