DAVAO CITY”•Hidilyn Diaz will get an extra P2 million aside from the P5-million incentive that the law mandates for one who wins a silver medal in the Olympic Games.
Diaz won the silver medal during the clean-and-jerk weightlifting competition in the ongoing Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
President Rodrigo Duterte handed the P5-million check to Diaz Thursday night during her courtesy call on him in Panacan in this city.
Duterte said the P5-million incentive based on R.A. 90699 was not enough due to the high honor that Diaz had given the country.
He said the additional P2 million he would be giving Diaz was an incentive to motivate other athletes to strive hard.
Diaz is also scheduled to receive P500,000 from Zamboanga City, where she hails from.
“For me, the P5 million is really not enough. I have seen the efforts that they have given that can be reciprocated by an office,” Duterte said.
Meanwhile, former boxer Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco, another silver medalist in the Olympics, is getting closer to receiving his P2.5-million incentive after 20 years of fighting to get it.
Duterte said he needed to know the person who promised Velasco the P2.5 million.
“Was there money programmed to include in the budget intended for a reward at that time?” Duterte said.
“If none, you just have to include it in the budget.”
Velasco won the silver medal in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, and for that he received P750,000 from the government and P1.2-million from R.A. 9064 during the regime of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Velasco was promised P2.5 million by Congress but he still has to receive it.