Following the example of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine Olympic Committee will hand out its own cash bonuses totalling more than P11 million to Filipino medal winners in the recent Vietnam 31st Southeast Asian Games.
This marks the second time under the leadership of Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino that the POC is rewarding the medalist athletes for their accomplishments in the SEA Games held last May 12 to 23 in main hub Hanoi and other Vietnam provinces.
“The POC will always recognize the efforts of the athletes who trained, prepared and fought hard in Vietnam despite the circumstances,” Tolentino said. “We may not have retained the overall championship, but what we saw in Vietnam was a fighting Team Philippines.”
Tolentino said the incentives were made possible by the POC’s partners—Manuel V. Pangilinan’s MVP Sports Foundation, Ramon S. Ang’s San Miguel Corp. and Charlie Gonzales’s Ulticon Builders Inc.
The bonuses are P100,000 for gold, P30,000 for silver and P10,000 for bronze in individual events, while the incentives are appropriately calibrated in team events. They will be deposited directly to the medalist athletes’ bank accounts.
The P11 million total is broken down into P5.82 million for the gold medalists, P3.22 million for the silver medalists and P1.97 million for the bronze medalists.
The government granted the medalist athletes their mandated incentives from the Philippine Sports Commission, with President Rodrigo Duterte also handing out his bonuses to the athletes during a courtesy call in Malacañang on Tuesday night.
Tolentino initiated the POC’s recognition in terms of financial bonuses to the athletes in the 2019 SEA Games which the country dominated.
There was a total of 227 medalists—52 gold, 70 silver and 105 bronze—in the Vietnam SEA Games.
The Athletes and Coaches Incentives Act provided bonuses of P300,000 for individual gold medalists, P150,000 for silver and P60,000 for bronze, while President Duterte the gold medalists another P250,000, silver medalists P150,000 and bronze medalists P100,000 for bronze medalists each, on top of awarding each of them the Order of Lapu-Lapu Kamagi medal for their sacrifice and significant feat after bringing international honors to the country.
