POC assembly an extraordinary cop-out
All indications point to Peping Cojuangco Jr. serving his fourth four-year term as president of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC).
Last Monday’s POC extraordinary general assembly, apparently ordered by the International Olympic Committee to solve the leadership impasse in Philippine sports, is only extraordinary in one thing: It shows the enormity of Cojuangco’s appetite for power. The man will cling to the presidency with whatever it takes. It’s just too good a gig for him to give up.
The Cojuangco camp cleverly maneuvered the assembly to look as though Cojuangco was following the IOC directive, not to mention abiding by a local court ruling, by declaring that a POC election would be held Feb. 23. This date is, indeed, the date mandated by a Pasig regional trial court for a new election after declaring Cojuangco’s Nov. 26 election as POC president “null and void.”
The cleverness comes in the caveat that Cojuangco has tacked on to the election. That, before the Feb. 23 election can happen, a committee — formed and appointed by Cojuangco, with committee members chosen by the very POC bigwigs led by Cojuangco himself — will first determine if Cojuangco’s rival for the presidency, boxing association head Ricky Vargas, is qualified to run.
The caveat is not only laughable, it is insulting. Was this not the reason why Vargas and his slate marched to court in the first place? To dispute his disqualification in that first election? And was this not what the court decision was about — a decision which, after more than a year at the lower and the appeals levels, was decided clearly in Vargas’s favor?
Now they’re back to square one. The IOC has been made a fool of Vargas’s fate, and that of his running mate Bambol Tolentino who ran for chairman, is again in the hands of the very same committee that disqualified them in the first place.
The election committee is still headed by former Philippine IOC representative and known Cojuangco lackey Frank Elizalde; and its members are still the same two that had disqualified Vargas then: Bro. Bernie Oca of La Salle and lawyer Alberto Agra, acting justice secretary in the Arroyo Administration.
If the 85-year-old Elizalde had already disqualified Vargas the last time Vargas’s qualification came up, why does anyone think the man will reverse himself? Could he be coming into a second opinion totally contradicting his first? Is this about a change of heart? A tweak of conscience? Could a previously unsummoned voice be telling him now, that for the good of Philippine sports, a new election must be held and must include Vargas? Could this actually be an epiphany? Of a man, in the remaining years of his life, deciding to leave something for his grandchildren to crow about?
As a part of the International Olympic Committee, Elizalde is entrusted with the fair interpretation of IOC directives. That last letter sent by the IOC, many believe, calls for an election that includes Vargas.
Out of delicadeza, Elizalde should inhibit himself from deciding on Vargas’s fate now because, quite simply, he had already made his stand clear way before this. He had already taken Vargas out of the running, leaving the field open to his friend Cojuangco. Elizalde shouldn’t even pretend to suddenly be objective and fair, let alone non-partisan.
It not only doesn’t wash, it is, once again, laughable and insulting. And the problem with delicadeza is that the virtue is alien to those whose appetites have already been whetted by what they currently imbibe.