Trillanes promises to help karatekas who were stripped of their allowances

SENATOR Antonio Trillanes IV on Monday promised to help the country’s top karatekas who were recently stripped of their monthly allowance by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) for refusing to compete in the POC-PSC National Games due to a new policy being adopted in the karatedo competition.

Last Monday, two-time Southeast Asian Games gold medallist and Asian Games silver medallist Marna Pabillore and four other karatekas as well as top Philippine Karatedo Federation (PKF) officials Go Teng Kok and PKF secretary-general Edward John Ponce paid a courtesy call on Senator Trillanes at the Senate office.

The four karatekas were Sharif Afif, Raymond Mejico, Renato Manalo and Jan Paul Morales.

Senator Trillanes, the newly installed Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP) president and Table Tennis head, promised to help the karatekas. He said he will write Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Ricardo Garcia to seek clarification on the matter and to ask the PSC chief to grant due process to the concerned national athletes who have won medals for the country in various international tournaments.

“Magpapadala tayo ng liham kay PSC Chairman (Ricardo) Garcia tungkol sa problema sa karatedo,” said Trillanes.

It can be recalled that Go and Ponce had a long standing word war against the group of POC spokesman Joey Romasanta, Dr. Enrico Vasquez, Raymund Lee Reyes and David Lay which resulted in a full-blown legal dispute.

Senator Trillanes also vowed to help resolve the raging controversy rocking the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association (PASA) of Mark Joseph and the group of former senator Niki Coseteng and some parents whose children were not allowed to compete in the Arafura Games in Australia.