A DAY after the Philippine team finished fourth overall in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam, Philippine Olympic Committee President and Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino focused his sights on next year’s biennial battle that will be hosted for the first time by Cambodia.
“All-in tayo sa Cambodia,” Tolentino said of his plan to field athletes in all events in the 32nd edition of the games set May 5-17, 2023. “But we have to start preparing right away.”
Tolentino spoke after the majority of national athletes, despite being hampered by the pandemic, returned home Monday with 52 gold medals after their gallant and inspiring stand in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Muay athlete Philip Delarmino accounted for the country’s fifth and last gold as action ended last Sunday, before chaos reigned in the Vietnamese capital as football-crazy fans celebrated their team’s title-clinching 1-0 win over Thailand that put an exclamation point on their dominance of the 12-day meet.
The 52 gold medals, on top of 70 silver and 104 bronze medals were miles better than the measly 23 gold, 33 silver and 64 bronze medals that Pinoy athletes won in the 2017 Malaysia Games, the last time a national contingent competed overseas, for a woeful sixth place finish.
“We congratulate our athletes. They showed resiliency when the going got rough. Despite the adversity they faced in preparing for the games, they rose to the challenge,” said Tolentino.
“We could have done better but we’ll take it. We had high hopes going to Hanoi, but we encountered a buzz-saw that was the Vietnamese juggernaut. We won a lot of silver medals, the ones that got away,” he said, ruing anew the fate met by lots of Filipino athletes in various disciplines who fell prey to subjective judging.
“We finished fourth place among 11 brother-countries in the region. This is our best finish since 1983 (in the Singapore SEA Games when we placed second to Indonesia) in a SEA Games event outside the Philippines,” PSC Commissioner Ramon Fernandez, the chief of mission of the national team, said.
“As Chef de Mission, I am truly very proud of this feat! Just as I thank my Philippine Sports Commission family headed by Chairman William Ramirez for their all-out support,” he added.
Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Eumir Marcial and fellow boxers Rogen Ladon and Ian Clark Bautista delivered three of the final-day gold medals for the Filipinos, with the fourth gold coming from the Gilas Pilipinas women’s squad that lost its final-day match to Malaysia 93-96 but nevertheless took the title for the country’s 51st mint.
Just when everybody thought that was the country’s last mint for the day, Delarmino struck with a muay gold, with Tolentino there to award the last gold for a winning Pinoy athlete.
Gilas Pilipinas’ failure to retain the gold medal in men’s basketball was still the talk of the town a day after the curtains fell on the games but the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas still had to issue a response to the call of fans to get rid of coach Chot Reyes, who called the shots for the nationals whose stint ended with an embarrassing and deflating 81-85 defeat to Indonesia in the gold medal game.
