The Philippine Sports Commission will be financially ready for a packed 2022 sports schedule thanks to the additional support from the House of Representatives and the Senate.

On top of the P175 million proposed budget of PSC for the fiscal year 2022, the lower chamber approved an additional P650 million for the PSC’s 2022 budget from general appropriations.

Senator Bong Go, who chairs the sports committee, also supported the budget increase from the upper chamber’s side.

But Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino continues to clamor for an increase in the budget as the original amount appropriated was not enough to fund the country’s campaigns in six major tournaments.

These are the Beijing Winter Olympics (February 4 to 20), Thailand Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (March 10 to 20), The World Games or TWG (Birmingham, Alabama, USA, July 7 to 22), Huangzhou Asian Games (September 10 to 25), and Shantou Asian Youth Games (December 20 to 28).

The Vietnam Southeast Asian (SEA) Games was postponed to 2022, but organizers are set to make a final decision on whether it would push through with the regional biennial meet.

Tolentino also said he had budget plans from the POC side, but was not included in the planning with the PSC and Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

“With due respect to the DBM, we in the POC were not consulted – and again with due respect to the PSC – we were not also asked, as part of planning, on how much is needed to fund our athletes for these major international competitions,” Tolentino said in his manifestation during the House Committee on Finance hearing.

“We are protecting and making sure that our qualified national athletes can compete in full force in those four major events that happen only once every four years, plus the SEA Games in Vietnam where we are the defending overall champion.”

Tolentino earlier planned a budget of P5 million for the Winter Olympics, P150 million for the AIMAG, P10 million for the TWG, P270 million for Asian Games, and P15 million for the AYG. The SEA Games budget was pegged at P200 million.

Both the Minority and Majority supported Tolentino’s manifestation for the additional budget for the PSC.

The budget increase comes after the Philippines reclaimed the overall championship title in the 2019 SEA Games and the country’s best finish in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz bagged the country’s first Olympic gold medal while boxers Nesthy Petecio, Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial hauled in two silvers and one bronze, respectively. – Rappler.com