One is a basketball great. The lone lady apointee is a wife of the late president of the pencat silat federation. Another is a sports journalist and still another is a member of an influential religious sect that supported the presidential candidacy of the appointing power.
These four gentlemen and lady comprise th Philippine Sports Commission team captained by returning Chair William "Butch" Ramirez tasked with extricating Phlippine sports from the ills it has been suffering for so long a time.
Fernandez, born in Maasin, Leyte, the same place where the newly-sworn in President Rodrigo Duterte saw light, and a Philippine Basketball Association great, undoubtedly, is Ramirez's most-credentialed teammate being only the first of only two men to have been accorded the pro-league's MVP four times beside being a member, too, of the silver medalist national five in the l990 Beijing Asian Games.
Dra. Celia Kiram, the better half of ex-pencat top man, Sultan Jamalul Kiram, a scion of a family that owns Sabah, presently holds the position formerly held by her husband, while Charles Maxey used to edit the sports section of a Davao daily. Arnold Agustin, besides serving the PSC as one of its department head, is a member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo.
To ensure the smooth running of the agency, which, incidentally celebrated its silver anniversary last year having been created under Rep Act 6847, each commissioner was given his own area of reponsibility with Fernandez overseeing the mass-based grassroot development of team sports.
Ms. Kiram will, naturally, take care of women' sports besides providing link with the sports affairs in Muslim Mindanao. Maxey, who had served in the sports development program in Davao and Mindanao will handle projects like Batang Pinoy and the Philippine Natiuonal Games. Agustin will be studying the possibility of establishing a modern national training center that will replace the decades-old Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
Ramirez and his commissioners vowed to end the ignominy of the Philippines' embarrassing finishes in all international competitions the Filipino athletes took part in the past six years under the past administration, particularly in the Southeast Asian Games, the lowest regional meet there is.
The new chair and company were referring to PH's sixth place finish in 2011, seventh in 2013, its lowest since joining the biennial conclave in 1977, and, again sixth last year.
With funding no longer a problem, Ramirez, who was one of those responsible for President Duterte's successful campaign, assured the public during the transition session with ex-chairman Richie Garcia, members of the old PSC board, a better performance of Filipino ahletes in the bigger stage such as the Asian Games and Olympic Games.
Ramirez, incidentally, was at the PSC helm when the Philippines captured the overall championship in the Maxnaila SEA Gasmew in 2005.
Ramirez and his board is foregoing the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, as the preparations for it were handled by Garcia' team.
Outside of the expected backing of a president for whom he was deputy campaign manager, Ramirez said he has already reached out to new Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) chair Andrea Domingo, who has given him the assurance that the PSC will receive the full five percent that is due from PAGCOR under the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) law.
Ramirez, likewise, expects the realization of the Philippine Sports Institute, a project he left nunfinished when he was replaced as PSC watchman in 2009.
