Peping will be lucky if he wins the POC polls
ALL Peping Cojuangco wanted was to see Ricky Vargas disqualified as his foe in the November 25 presidential election of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC).
To a certain extent, Peping was successful.
The POC Comelec headed by Frank Elizalde declared Vargas, the nation’s boxing head, ineligible for being an “inactive member resulting from Vargas’ absences in the General Assembly the last two years.”
What a flimsy reason—a profoundly cheap technicality only people madly clinging to power could so design with impunity.
But just when Peping thought he was unchallenged on his way to a fourth straight four-year term since 2004, he was dead wrong.
Vargas, after his appeal was denied by the Comelec, went to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a ruling. Next, he asked the Pasig Regional Trial court to TRO the Nov. 25 election.
On his own, Sonny Angara, the most sportsminded senator next to Manny Pacquiao, ordered a Senate probe on the issue.
And then Commissioner Ramon Fernandez of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) joined the fray by requesting Cojuangco to allow Vargas to run “in the true spirit of democracy.”
In the heat of the moment came the allegation that Cojuangco had failed to liquidate some P175 million given to him by the PSC as expenses for the 2005 SEA Games in Manila.
Also reportedly un-liquidated is the P129-million outlay from the PSC for POC operations from 2010 to 2016.
“It took six years for the public to know about these anomalies,” said Go Teng Kok, the former athletics president aka GTK.
Cojuangco got reelected unopposed in 2012 when he had GTK disqualified. Cojuangco declared GTK persona non grata—a “ground” for disqualification— weeks before the 2012 polls following GTK’s continuous tirades against Cojuangco’s administration.
“I salute PSC Commissioner Ramon Fernandez for his guts to expose the un-liquidated POC funds,” said GTK. “Peping is now fooling everybody that he would liquidate up to the last centavo to cover up a very clear case of corruption.”
If Cojuangco could weather the storm, see Vargas finally ousted from the race and then proceed to win the election unopposed, I wouldn’t be surprised one teeny-weeny bit.
After all, didn’t Trump win?