Indeed, more than the medals racked up by the Team Philippines, it is the learnings culled from the hundreds of matches and sporting events participated in by Filipino athletes that should serve as springboard to make Philippine sports more globally competitive moving forward.
These upcoming events definitely highlight the need for the Philippines to step up its game to be at par with the world's best.
However, if the recently concluded Asian Games 2018 is any indicator, it looks like the Philippines may be rife with potential but it still has a lot of catching up to do even among its Asian neighbors sports-wise.
So begging for an answer is this question: What should the Philippines do to become a regional and eventually a global sports powerhouse?
We list down six important pointers to get the country on track to achieving that goal.
1. The government should lend vigorous institutional support to national sports teams.
For the longest time, Filipino athletes have been complaining of the many ills plaguing local sports. These include the sorry state of their training facilities, very minimal budget, abysmally low living allowances, dearth of support staff, graft and corruption, and lack of opportunities to train or compete overseas.
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| Asiad gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz decries lack of support. |
The seeming institutional neglect by the national government insofar as Filipino athletes are concerned becomes manifest when the Philippines ends up doing badly in international events. These dismal performances reflect how far the country has been left behind and how far ahead the rest of the international contingent has reached into becoming powerhouses in their own right.
A cursory look at the world's most prolific achievers in sports would readily indicate the strong support they get from their respective governments.
Clear and adequate institutional support is reflected in a number of ways. These include, for the main, the mandatory provision for state of the art training facilities.
In addition, national teams should be provided with ample support staff composed of topnotch coaching and training teams, medical units, and decent living conditions, including of course livable stipends.
2. Sports agencies and national sports associations should be depoliticized.
There's an old adage that goes: sports and politics should not mix.
While there is a semblance of wisdom to this adage -- as exemplified by the usual situation where one team or athlete gets favored over a more superior team or athlete because the former has greater political capital -- the fact is, sports cannot exist in a vacuum. Politicians will always try to intrude into as much domains as possible to exert their weight and influence as an attempt at cementing their hold of power.
The Philippines is witness to how the extreme politicization of government sports departments and national sports associations could severely dampen the growth and development of sports in the country.
Consider, for example, that the top honchos and officials of government offices looking after the welfare of Filipino athletes are in fact political appointees. Many of these so-called leaders do not even have background in sports management; most of them manage to "earn" their positions on account of their having contributed to the election campaigns of their appointing authorities or on account of close personal relations.
The result? You have sports heads and team managers who are more concerned with their political survival rather than the welfare of the athletes whose interests they should be espousing above all else.
Is it any wonder then why in all the years the Philippines has been competing in the Olympics, it has not managed to earn even a single gold medal? The situation on the ground is desperate, and for obvious reasons: Filipino athletes are held hostage by dirty politics.
What should be done to rectify this situation?
The answer is simple: sever sports from the toxicity of traditional politics. This can be done by setting standards on who should and must lead sports associations and offices in the country. A criteria must be set to ensure that only qualified managers and heads with credible sports background should be considered for the posts.
In terms of fiscal management, sports associations should be given the autonomy to manage their own finances. This means they should not be subject to bureaucratic red tape. At the same time, adequate measures must be put in place in order to ensure transparency and accountability in the way their budgets are spent.
3. Apart from the usual trio of Filipino fixations composed of basketball, boxing, and volleyball, equal focus and attention should be given to less popular sports.
Whether it be in the Olympics, the Asian Games, or the SEA Games, medals and shots of glory are at stake across hundreds of sporting events and categories. In this regard, the great number of opportunities available to succeed should be taken advantage of by sports officials in the Philippines.
Sports officials and the public alike should recognize that it's not just basketball, volleyball, and boxing which should be given attention; other sports should, too. In fact, a look at the Asian Games 2018 medal haul of the Philippines would show that a great number of the medals came from sports that many Filipinos may not have even heard of, such as pencak silat and wushu.
What is stopping sports leaders in the Philippines from setting their sights on other fields where the Philippines stands a chance of excelling in?
4. Filipino atheletes should be given ample exposure to international sporting events.
A truly good way of gauging the level of an athlete's growth and maturity is through his/her performance against the top athletes in the same field. It is never enough that a Filipino athlete is the best in the country; this should and must also be complimented by excellence when faced against tougher competitors.
The benefits of exposure to global sporting events cannot be understated. For one, it inspires confidence and boosts the ego of athletes whose success outside of the Philippines means they have what it takes to be at par with or even better than the world's top athletes. Even failures in such competitions can be a potential minefield of valuable lessons for further improvement down the line.
In the Asian Games 2018, the Philippine women's volleyball team suffered from very lopsided losses against some of the world's top teams, including China and Thailand. Part of their dismal performance can be attributed to the fact that the volleyball team was poorly organized, lacked adequate training, had little time to form a cohesive unit, and sorely lacked exposure in international sporting events.
These losses are not for naught, though; instead, these should be used as reminders of what the team needs to do and improve on if it intends to unleash a more competitive performance in the future.
5. Recruitment and search for talent should reach the grassroots level.
Finally, the Philippines should have a holistic approach in talent search and development.
Either due to lack of funds or just plain urban-centrism, many talent scouts in the Philippines focus their sights on sporting events in cities where they hope to scout the next big sports sensation. Woe the talented athletes in far-flung provinces whose individual potentials end up getting wasted because no one knows they even exist.
Sure, the annual Palarong Pambansa is a great time for talent scouts to set their sights on promising young athletes who are there on account of having bested other competitors in their respective regions. But this event leaves out other equally promising athletes who for some reason or another failed to be part of it.
In other words, the Palarong Pambansa should not be the sole source of sporting talent. National teams and their managers must be able to come up with a more inclusive method of talent scouting that goes beyond the cities and into the grassroots.
Scouting talents while they are still young is so much better than training someone who is already about to go to college. Sustainability, viability, and the development of a deep talent pool should be some of the main considerations of national sports teams in the country.
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The Philippines' performance in the recently concluded Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia is relatively better than the country's overall performance in the Asian Games 2014 in Incheon, South Korea. This is definitely a positive development for Philippine sports at large. Congratulations should be in order to the Filipino athletes and staff who made this possible.
But the fact that the Philippines still lags behind perennial sporting powerhouses is a testament that everybody involved should not rest on their individual laurels. Instead, they should work harder and more vigorously in the coming days, months, and years because, guess what, powerhouses are not made overnight.
That being said, mabuhay ang atletang Pilipino! #LabanPilipinas always!