Swimming tryouts under POC

After taking over volleyball, the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) has decided to also take charge of the formation of the swimming team to the 28th Southeast Asian Games in Singapore next year.

SEAG chief of mission Julian Camacho said the POC will handle the affairs of the Philippine Aquatic Sports Association (PASA) for its failure to come up with a list of candidates to the Singapore sports fest scheduled June 5 to 16.

“The board has voted that the POC will take over the formation of the team for this SEAG,” said Camacho after attending yesterday’s POC meeting.

This will be the second national team the POC will directly form after it took over the tryouts of the national volleyball team to the SEA Games after a power struggle within the volleyball association left it without a leader.

The past few months, the POC has been summoning various NSAs and requesting their leaders to submit a lineup for the SEAG and PASA head Mark Joseph has been unable to come up with one.

Camacho said that all Joseph has done is “tell the POC that he has about 90 athletes for the SEAG but he simply could not come up with names.”

The decision to admonish the PASA has been forthcoming since Joseph has been unable to produce high results the last two editions of the biennial SEAG.

Over 40 golds will be up for grabs in Singapore and the POC believes that it will be unforgivable to allow other countries to feast on the abundance of medals.

The Philippines is gunning to put an end to its mediocre showing in the SEAG following its breakthrough campaign when it was the host in 2005.