Lessons from the SEA Games

“I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating.” © Sophocles

- By BILL VELASCO

The Southeast Asian Games are upon us once again. This early, the organizers in Thailand are making sure to dampen the Philippines’ chances of winning gold medals in the sports that we are strong in. We have been covering the SEA Games since the late 1980s. There are some bewildering decisions that we repeatedly see, all in aid of crippling the Philippines and other strong countries from dominating.

Of course, as we have seen in the last two weeks, the first point of attack is eligibility. The organizers of the Bangkok Games belatedly announced their own rules, to the detriment of Gilas Pilipinas. First, they declared that naturalized players would not be allowed to play. Then, with a week and a half before the opening, they insist on disqualifying more players based on their parentage. This is an obvious employee to diminish the pool of resources for our basketball team. Just for perspective, Thailand has never been able to fairly beat the Philippines in basketball. They’ ve used eligibility to eliminate Filipinos of mixed extraction in other sports, as well.