|
MORE
names are expected to crop up as the National Chess
Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) vowed to dig deeper
into the scam it dubbed “networking.”
Sammy
Estimo, the NCFP executive director, said the ongoing
investigation on six players, including grandmaster Mark
Paragua who is campaigning in the Asian Zonal in
Vietnam,
would open a can of worms in the chess
community.
“Yes,
there are more who cropped up during the course of our
investigation. But we’re still verifying the veracity of
the reports,” Estimo told the BusinessMirror
yesterday.
Currently being probed for rigging results of local
tournaments besides Paragua are International Masters
Darwin Laylo, and Ronald Dableo, who are also in
Vietnam, and National Master Oliver Basbosa, Melvin
Roque and Enerose Magno. None could be contacted for
comment though.
Estimo
refused to name the next group of players suspected of
rigging matches. National Masters Mirabeau Maga, Alex
Milagrosa, Dino Ballecer and Ferdinand Leysa were named
in another paper’s report as also involved in the scam
but they denied their involvement and vowed to sue the
paper for implicating them.
“As far
as Dableo and Laylo are concerned, the evidence is
really strong against them; even if the formal
investigation hasn’t started, we confirmed their
identities,” said Estimo.
Estimo
explained the NCFP Internal Affairs Committee headed by
former Benguet Gov. Raul Molintas would pursue the
formal investigation. The committee would then submit
its report to the NCFP board, which has the power to
slap penalties on erring players.
Maga,
Milagrosa, Ballecer and Leysa, as well as the father of
12-year-old Woman NM Christy Lamiel Bernales, came up
with separate statements refuting a report linking them
to the scam.
“I was
never part of game-fixing or networking,” said Maga. “I
never dropped a match; I defaulted because I was fixing
my passport, and so I wasn’t able to go to the
match.”
Maga, a
three-time Olympian and champion of the 2006 Cordillera
Open Chess in Baguio City, belied an allegation he
deliberately defaulted his match against Bernales in the
national championships last December.
Bernales’s father, Jomar, also denied his daughter’s
involvement. “We didn’t know Maga would default then and
we didn’t talk to him about dropping the match,” he
said.
Ballecer
and Milagrosa both denied they intentionally dropped
their matches against the younger Bernales.
Leysa,
for his part, insisted he did not deliberately lose to
WNM Kimberly Jane Cunanan in the final round of the
national championships. “I really lost to Kimberly. I
won’t ever go into game-fixing.” |
