Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Butch Ramirez (middle) chats with PSC commissioner Ramon Fernandez (left) and Ricky Vargas, president of ABAP, in a meeting at the PSC office. (CDN PHOTO/CALVIN D. CORDOVA)
POC president Cojuangco snubs meeting with PSC chairman Ramirez
A no-show once more. Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., the embattled president of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), snubbed a meeting called by Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Butch Ramirez yesterday in the hopes of threshing out the issues surrounding the two sporting bodies.
Ramirez initiated the meeting a day after a Senate hearing that would have looked into POC’s alleged failure to liquidate close to P130 million of funds it got from the PSC was cancelled.
The Senate inquiry didn’t push through after Cojuangco and other POC officials begged off from attending in favor of a court hearing that tackled a temporary restraining order (TRO) that was filed to stop the Nov. 25 POC elections.
Cojuangco, however, also did not show up in the TRO hearing.
The TRO was filed by Ricky Vargas, who is the president of the Amateur Boxing Alliances of the Philippines (ABAP), after he was disqualified from running as president of the POC purportedly for not being an active member of POC.
Vargas went to the PSC office to attend the supposed meeting. He was accompanied by his legal counsel Chito Salud, Ed Picson, executive director of ABAP, and Patrick Gregorio, secretary general of ABAP.
“The purpose of the meeting was to come up with a win-win solution for the unity of Philippine sports,” said Ramirez.
TRO as an excuse
PSC Commissioner Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez was also in the PSC office.
Fernandez asked Cojuangco to explain why he failed to attend the Senate hearing.
Fernandez said he believed that Cojuangco’s decision not to appear before the Senate hearing was “a dilatory tactic on the part of Cojuangco to avoid answering issues hurled against him.”
“As a subterfuge, Cojuangco used the TRO hearing as an excuse for him not to appear in the Senate hearing. However, during the TRO hearing, of which he used as an excuse, Cojuangco and his officials did not appear, thereby negating his previous commitment to answer the allegations hurled against him,” Fernandez said in a statement.
Fernandez challenged Cojuangco “to be honest and transparent to the sports community and to confront the issues directly, not to hide behind the skirt of excuses in the spirit of true sportsmanship and Olympism.”
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