POC president keeps promise to help return athlete’s allowances

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino vowed to help get back the slashed budget for the athlete’s allowances which was redirected to the COVID-19 fund amid the ongoing fight against the pandemic.

Aside from being the POC chief, Tolentino is also a member of the House of Representatives and he will try to do all he can to help regain the money for the PH athletes, especially that the athletes and the coaches are nearing their training for the qualifying tournaments for the Tokyo Olympics.

“I will try, not as POC president but as member of the House of Representatives, we (Congress) will try to return the amount taken from the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) at ibinalik sa national treasury for COVID-19 use,” said Tolentino.

The NSDF is where the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) draws their budget for the members of the national team.

However, the sports body already said that 700-900 million pesos had already been returned to the government’s treasury after being used as extra funds for the current crisis.