The Comfort Rooms

Laos SEA Games Aftermath

Just a funny thought, it was kinda hard for me to google this picture up. The keywords "poomsae" and "poomsae philippines" does not work to show this photo on the first page of its image results. What I did was search for who the three ladies were and find this photo on their Facebook profiles. So for the three ladies in this picture, sorry for invading your privacy.

So the 25th Southeast Asian Games drew to a close last Friday. The country finished 5th. It was a lowly ranking although the country could have managed to get into third spot.

It was kind of expected that the country would fare badly this year. But the country's non-representation as one of the broadcasters for the event is really just disappointing. It goes to show that none really cares about sports...other than basketball, billiards and boxing.

As expected, those sports with better funding (taekwondo, athletics, swimming) gets to win more gold medals. More funds means more appreciation shown to these athletes, more off-shore training, more international competitions, better training. Everybody from the sports-loving world has been clamoring for a national sports program that will be the avenue to better results on international sporting competitions especially the Olympics.

As we get to read December 20, 2009 broadsheet, expect sports columnists to write stuff about the things I have just mentioned. Lack of training, lack of funding, lack of preparation, lack of support. I'm just wondering, why aren't our athletes been really vocal about their dilemna? Shouldn't there be a Filipino athletes association? I believe that will mirror what our athletes really feel. Philippine sports is deeply fractured by rampant corruption and politicking. I hope our next President will give sports the recognition it rightly deserves.

See you all on the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China in 2010! Expect more golds from the country this time!

This post was written by: Jerick Baluyot

Jerick Baluyot is a professional blogger, writer and digital marketing specialist. Follow him on Twitter