Wake up call

Last month, news about Filipino basketball player Kiefer Ravena failing a doping test randomly made by the FIBA, the world’s governing basketball body, was made public. For the offense, he was suspended from playing for 18 months.

Ravena had explained that he was not aware that a preworkout drink he took before the game, and which he had failed to declare in his Doping Control Form after his team Gilas Pilipinas’ game against Japan last Feb. 25, contained three banned substances found on the Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

WADA has this long list that changes quite often, and much as this is circulated with some regularity among Philippine basketball teams, little attention is given to it because of the complicated and confusing terminologies enumerated. But then again, this is no excuse for not knowing.

Apparently, the three prohibited substances had been declared in the literature of the pre-workout drink that Ravena drank, but because he was unaware of its inclusion in the WADA list, he saw nothing wrong in taking the drink – or for declaring it.

Given the mitigating circumstances, FIBA reduced Ravena’s suspension by six months. But the damage has been done to this brilliant basketball player, even as the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas belatedly announced it would conduct an awareness campaign on the threats of accidental doping such as what happened to Ravena.

This is a wakeup call not only for Filipino basketball players, but all Filipino athletes as well as all relevant sports organizations like the Philippine Basketball Association, their teams, and even the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympics Committee.

Observance of international standards

International standards are not to be taken lightly, and this extends – perhaps more importantly – not only in sports, but also to other areas of Philippine competitiveness including economic performance, financial health, doing business, tourism, and infrastructure.

Last month too, at about the same time as the FIBA announcement, the Switzerland-based business school International Institute for Management Development (IMD) came out with its 2018 World Competitiveness Rankings, where the Philippines was shown to have fallen by nine rungs, from 41st to 50th.

It was the biggest drop for the Philippines in a decade of ranking, one that put us in last place among the ASEAN founding members. It was also the worst fall by a country in the Asia Pacific region.

It was shocking news for the country’s many stakeholders, but earned a statement from the Department of Finance as something “laughable,” arguing that the IMD had used data that did not truly reflect the real situation of the country.

In fact, many of the statements found in the 2018 World Competitive Rankings on four pillars of competitiveness were passionately argued, almost point by point, by members of the government economic team.

He said, she said

It has almost turned into a he-said-she-said affair, one that leaves the jury confused as to what is the real score. The competitive rankings were assessed on four main factors: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.

The IMD said that the biggest drop was recorded in economic performance, where the Philippines plunged from the 26th spot in 2017 to 50th this year. In particular, it underlined the “slight increase in unemployment rate and a slight decrease in the number of employed, and the size of the active labor force in the context of general improvements in other countries ranked.”

The IMD cited the latest Labor Force Survey found on the Philippine Statistics Authority web site where more Filipinos as a percentage of the work force were jobless in January 2018 at 5.3 percent from the last survey in October 2017 at five percent.

The DOF countered this by saying that the number of employed persons in the country rose 6.1 percent in January 2018 and unemployment rate “dropped” to 5.3 percent. The use of quotation marks is mine, for emphasis.

The hurtling of numbers went on and on as the economic team tried to debunk what the IMD report said. To step back, it does seem like our side was on the defensive, raising a bit too much noise for just one of the many competitive surveys published in the world.

Started in 1989, the IMD’s yearly ranking is still considered to be an important indicator that bears hearing out – as with others like the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum and the Ease of Doing Business Report by the World Bank.

A new era

The reaction of the economic team is understandable given the economic pressure building up caused by the rise in crude oil prices, the depreciation of the Philippine peso vis-à-vis the US dollar, and the overall recovery of the world’s health.

We are entering a new era, leaving behind the ravages that the last global financial crisis wreaked upon on the US and many developed countries in Europe and Asia. The rules of the game are changing, and the pressure points for economic survival are increasing.

Perhaps more importantly, the IMD report takes into account the views and perceptions of many individuals who arguably provide useful inputs for any country’s planning team. It is important to discern cues from external observations.

And in case there has been data that were wrongly lifted, let’s make sure that these are correctly used in the next survey. This way, we all end up reading the right notes.

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