PRESIDENT Duterte sees “negligence” and lack of foresight on the part of the organizing committee following initial mishaps in the country’s hosting of the 30th South East Asian (SEA) Games.
The Chief Executive himself also wondered aloud how come the unfortunate events still happened given the “huge” budget allotted by the government for the hosting of the biennial athletic meet. The budget for the SEA Games hosting is P6 billion. Since the proposed budget by Philippine Sea Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) for the event is P7.5 billion, the remaining P1.5 billion was reportedly raised through sponsorship.
The chairman of Phisgoc is House Speaker and Taguig 1st District Representative Alan Peter Cayetano, who was Duterte’s running mate in the 2016 presidential elections.
“I am not attributing it to anybody. But you know it’s a huge fund and there ought not to have [been] problems like even logistics and things. Because you can do it, not really with precision, but had you made most [use] of the money then you could have avoided the critical situations, the mishaps [they’re talking about],” Duterte said in a television interview aired in a morning show on Monday.
He said he hopes this would be the last time he would be talking about the controversy while the SEA Games is ongoing, but reiterated his sentiments about the inconvenience that the national teams had to go through despite the organizers being given years of preparation.
“Actually, I’m not saying, I don’t know if it’s true. But it’s not time to be talking about it because…the SEA Games is going on. And I hope this would be the last time that I’d be talking about it during the entire … athletic meet. So it is not good preparations,” he said.
“It was a huge sum. You do not wait for the bus companies to send their buses to help you out. You had so many years to prepare for it. So how come na ganyan ang nangyari? (So how come these happened?) And even [with] the food, and in the billeting of the hotel na hindi nila alam kung saang hotel [where they do not know which hotel to bring the athletes to.) These things could have been avoided if you used the money correctly,” he added.
Duterte was referring to the incidents when Timor-Leste and Myanmar football teams had to wait for hours at the airport before they were brought to the hotel. Timor-Leste team also said they were even brought to the wrong hotel after the long wait.
The Cambodian team had to sleep on a conference floor because their accommodation wasn’t ready, though the hotel in question later explained that the earlier arrival of the team was not relayed to them by organizers.
Singapore Chef De Mission Juliana Seow also wrote a letter to Phisgoc, complaining that their SEA Games delegation had to suffer from insufficient halal food and transportation problems.
Thailand’s football contingent also had problems with food and water.
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