THERE should be no room for politics and patronage in Philippine sports.
Thus said former Sen. Anna Dominique “Nikki” Coseteng as she took up the cudgels for the nth time for the beleaguered swimmers who continue to bring honor to the country despite limited support from the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).
A well-known human rights activist and street parliamentarian before her forays into sports, Coseteng urged the new officials of the PSC to look deeper into the controversies hounding the national swimming association.
The 64-year-old chairwoman of the Philippine Swimming League (PSL) said the new sports officials appointed by President Duterte should take a more active role in ensuring that the financial assistance given by the government sports agency is properly spent for the welfare of the athletes.
Coseteng expressed surprised that the POC continue to recognize the Philippine Swimming, Inc. (PSI) whose president Mark Powell Joseph has pending warrant of arrest issued by the Sandinganbayan Third Division for alleged violation of Republic Act 3019.
PSL, headed by Coseteng and Olympian Susan Papa, also found an ally in the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), headed by Dante Jimenez, which threw its full support to the efforts to crack the whip on undesirable individuals in sports.
“Our government is injured by fraudulent practices and unremitting efforts to cheat. The country’s program for the development of swimming as a sport is not spared. Millions of pesos have been drawn from government funds purportedly for the swimmers, only to be used for corrupt purposes,” said Coseteng in a press statement also signed by Papa and Jimenez.
“To close our eyes to this prevailing situation is to condone fraud against the government treasury and to go against the interests of our young swimmers in particular, and the Filipino people and our country in general,” added Coseteng,
Coseteng lamented the culture of patronage and politics in sports and claimed “the greatest roadblock in the long and arduous journey of Philippine sports to national and international excellence is the persistent moral depravity of our sports institutions which is aggravated by the wanton disregard of govenrment officials of their mandate and duties under the law.”
She said the previous PSC failed to function as an effective government regulatory agency.
“The PSC in the past has turned a deaf ear to the voices of young Filipino swimmers whose only dream is to swim freely and pursue excellence in theiur chosen field. The PSC has continued to work with and follow the dictates of PSI president Mark Joseph despite the fact that the latter is facing corruption charges before the Office of Sandiganbayan and child abuse case in the Quezon Cty Regional Trial Court.”
A graduate of the Notre Dame College of California and University of the Philippines, Coseteng was team owner and manager of the Galerie Dominique team in the Philippine Basketball Associaiton (PBA).
In 1983, she became vice-president of Asia’s first play-for-pay league.
She was elected member of the House of Representatives for the Third District of Quezon City in 1987 and was elected senator in 1992.
In 1995, she was re-elected senator and served until 2001. She is now president of the family-owned Diliman College.