WHO WILL BE THE COACH OF THE PHILIPPINE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM ?

Now that the opening salvo of Philippine Superliga has come to an end, the Philippine Volleyball Federation can now start the formation of a women's national team. Superliga players can now be tapped to form the nucleus of the team. UAAP  may only account for 5 players at the most.

The coach of the women's team will likewise come from Superliga according to a reliable source. While Coach Sammy may appear to be the most popular choice, his team's failure to win in the Philippine National Games will certainly work against him. What the team needs is a no-nonsense coach who will make his players abhor losing. A coach who will not mind looking bad in front of the camera to put sense into his players. As I have said in the past, I am impressed with that coach who was caught by the camera berating his players. I believe his name is Francis Vicente.

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE NEW PHILIPPINE VOLLEYBALL FEDERATION AND WOMEN'S TEAM

courtesy of sports.inquirer.net

A few months ago, a rebel group, citing national interest, fast-tracked the creation of a women's volleyball team for the Philippines without the approval of the Philippine Volleyball Federation. The move caused so much controversy that it eventually led to the removal of the PVF president.

But now that some of the members of the rebel group are with PVF, the urgency to form a national team has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. Worse, a local volleyball tournament has been given more importance by the group than the creation of a national team. The creation of a women's volleyball national team has been put on hold as Superliga goes into its final stages.

PVF has yet to submit an entry by number and an entry by name to the Southeast Asian Games.The SEAG Task Force in the meantime is in a quandary as it has no record upon which it can determine the qualification of the yet-to-be-formed team. If PVF thinks it can form a team that will make the top 8 in the Asian Championships, it certainly is deceiving itself. The Asian Championships, a tournament where four of the competing teams are ranked in the top 15 in the world, is merely 3 months away. A highly competitive team is simply impossible to achieve in a span of 3 months.

The POC, PSC and SEAG Task Force have enumerated the things that the volleyball team needs to have to be able to participate in the SEA games. It is now up to the new members of PVF to rise to the challenge. PVF will do well to put the country's interest over local tournaments that only generate shallow entertainment and hollow applause from volleyball fans. It is time to put into action the earlier claim of the new members of PVF that they put national interest above everything else.

INSANITY OF THE U23 AZKALS AND THEIR MINIONS

courtesy of sports.yahoo.com.ph

This issue of whether the U23 Azkals will be allowed to go or not to the SEA Games this December must be settled once and for all. But the handlers of the team themselves refuse to do so.

It is unbelievable how PFF and Dan Palami have not presented proof, to this day, that the U23 Azkals can actually win a gold medal. They have cleverly used their media influence to gather sympathy for their team without presenting solid evidence that their team can win. POC and PSC have set the standard for all the teams that intend to go to the SEA Games. The least that Palami and POC can do is to abide by the standard.

The problem really lies with the team being incapable of meeting the standard. Sports writers and fans of the Azkals can say or write a lot of things against POC and PSC. But the fact remains that all the complaints and tirades agaist POC and PSC are rooted from the refusal of the two highest sports bodies of the land to send a loser of a team like the U23 Azkals.

Football development will not come to a stop with the U23 Azkals' non-participation in the SEA Games. There are other friendlies and tournaments that the team can participate in to hone its skills. It is the task of PFF and Palami to come up with a viable and effective sports program that will enable their team to gain respect. As I see it, the POC and PSC have utter lack of respect for the U23 Azkals team. It is up to PFF and Palami to devise ways to earn that respect.

WHY DID PALAMI SAY THAT WEILER WAS NOT CONNECTED WITH THE AZKALS TEAM ?

He ( Palami ) reiterated, "The person [again, referring to Weiler] who's been talking to media is not in any way related to the team. He's not."

                                    - PEP, dated July 14, 2011

Palami previously said that Weiler was only making up the story to get back at the national team, who refused to take him on as part of the management. Palami added that Weiler’s claim that he was a consultant of the Philippine Football Federation was untrue, given that the German was appointed years ago and said appointment was no longer valid.
                                 
                                  - InterAksyon.com. dated July 13, 2011

Below is an email from the German Embassy in Manila. I got this email to determine Paul Weiler's role to the Azkals National Football Team. Dan Palami, at the height of a controversial issue, was insisting that Weiler was not in any way connected with the Azkals National Team. Why then did the German Embassy copy furnish Weiler this document ? If Paul Weiler was not in any way connected with the Azkals, why was he then included in this document regarding the German Football Federation's invitation for Palami and Rodriguez ?

----- Original Message ----- From: "Deutsche Botschaft Manila, Visastelle" <visa@mani.auswaertiges-amt.de>
To: "jojo rodriguez" <jojo_rodriguez42@yahoo.com>; <dsc_palami@palami.com.ph>
Cc: <paweiler@online.de>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 3:17 AM
Subject: URGENT: DFB INVITATION for Mr. Dan Palami and Mr. Jose Martin Rodriguez


Dear Mr. Palami,

Dear Mr. Rodriguez,

please find attached information regarding the application for a
Schengen-Visa as well information regarding the appointment system of
the Visa Section.

Kindly be informed that the processing of a Schengen-Visa application
takes 10 to 12 working days. If you apply for your respective visa on
December 17, the visas can be issued before the end of the year or
(under consideration of the holidays) by January 3, 2010. This will
allow you to arrive in time for your appointment on January 6 (or 7)
2011 in Germany.

The waiting time for an appointment is currently 1 working day. You can
therefore set your respective appointment today for your interview in
the Embassy tomorrow.

The application must in any case be completed online in order to
facilitate the data processing and thus expedite the visa processing as
a whole. If the appointment is set via the Call Center, the data is
encoded online by the Call Center staff. The application form is then
delivered to the Embassy, where it is handed to the visa applicant for
checking and signing.

You can download additional information regarding the application for a
visa (information leaflets, application forms and answers to frequently
asked questions) from the website of the Embassy via the following link:
http://www.manila.diplo.de/Vertretung/manila/en/01/Visabestimmungen/Visaverfahren__und__downloads.html

Kindly understand that questions that are already answered by the
information available on the website of the Embassy cannot be answered
separately.
If you have additional questions, that are not answered by the available
information on the website of the Embassy, you are welcome to contact me
directly.

I hope you find this useful.

-- 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Im Auftrag

Lisa Goddard-Paz
Visastelle/visa section

Deutsche Botschaft Manila
Level 25, Tower 2
RCBC Plaza
6819 Ayala Avenue,
1200 Makati City
Metro Manila, Philippinen
Tel.:  (0063 2) 702 3000
Fax: (0063 2) 702 3015
Visa-Tel.: (0063 2) 702 3001 bis 3005
Visa-Fax: (0063 2) 702 3045
E-Mail: visa@mani.diplo.de
Internet: www.manila.diplo.de

It is interesting to note that the email from the German Embassy was sent to Palami, Rodriguez and Weiler merely 6 months prior to a reported incident involving a model and four Azkals members.

Clearly, the email establishes the fact that Paul Weiler had some form of connection to the team. Now why would Dan Palami deny such a connection ? More important, what is this significant connection ? Also, Paul Weiler must have been an important person to be included in the email regarding the procurement of Palami and Rodriguez's  visas. Why then would Palami deny Weiler and speak as if Weiler is a non-entity as far as he and his team are concerned ? Lastly, the subject heading is DFB INVITATION which establishes the link that Paul Weiler has with Palami, Rodriguez and DFB. This confirms the ties that Paul Weiler has even with the DBF.

What say you, Dan Palami ?

U23 AZKALS WILL GO TO 2013 SOUTHEAST ASIAN GAMES

Highly placed sources reveal that U23 Azkals will participate in the SEA Games in Myanmar after all. The standard set initially by POC and PSC has been thrown out the window, allowing sure non-medalists like U23 Azkals to finally represent the country.

With this, several questions arise. Who or what forced  POC and PSC to totally abandon their "only gold medalist" policy ? What will prevent other national teams, which do not have a ghost of a chance to win a medal, from asking POC and PSC to allow them to go to Myanmar too ? With a bigger delegation, will PSC be able to shoulder the expenses of the additional delegates ? Will only those who can shoulder their own expenses be the ones to go ? How will the athletes, who worked hard to win gold medals, take the unmerited accommodation of dead-last finishers like the U23 Azkals ?  Where is the pursuit of excellence in sports if non-winners are given the same privilege as gold medalists ?

The problem with Philippine sports is the lack of premium on excellence. We as a nation do not value excellence in sports. We do not demand excellence from our national teams. We are not ashamed of the fact that our national teams finish dead last in most of the tournaments they participate in. Thus, we end up as a big joke in major tournaments abroad. I truly long for the day when we expect our national teams to win gold medals because our standards and expectations dictate so.

DAN PALAMI : U23 AZKALS CAN WIN THE GOLD IN SEA GAMES ( YEAH RIGHT )

courtesy of choosephils

According to an extremely reliable source, Dan Palami wrote in his letter of appeal that the U23 Azkals can win the gold medal in the coming SEA Games. I am shocked that such a statement comes from the PPF national teams' committee head and team manager of the Azkals himself. It is so detached from reality that it is downright crazy.

The POC has told PFF and Palami to present proof that their team is worthy to be sent to Myanmar. To this day, they have not presented solid evidence that the U23 Azkals can win against neighboring countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Worse, Palami has come up with statements that are far from the truth. As my source said, masyadong malayo.

Perhaps, Dan Palami and PFF will do well to have a reality check. Are the U23 Azkals really capable of winning a gold medal ? Being delusional will not help at all. Only through an honest, complete and detailed assessment of the U23 Azkals team will Palami and PFF truly be able to help the team achieve a small amount of improvement and respect.

A TEAM OF INTELLECTUALLY-DISABLED BOWLERS MAKES THE PHILIPPINES PROUD

I just interviewed a team of intellectually-disabled bowlers who recently won 5 gold medals in an invitational in Singapore. The team, composed of Robin Clarino, Mark Inductivo, Bryan Robles, Joy Bautista, Jonny Zulueta, Anton Silos and coached by Cristy Canizares and Atty. Gani Zulueta, competed against over a hundred others bowlers from Singapore and Malaysia to make the country proud.

The interview for Bandera truly warmed my heart as I saw how these young intellectually-disabled bowlers knew how to represent the country well. Despite their disablility, they essentially knew that they were not only playing for themselves but for the country as well. One of the bowlers, Anton Silos, in fact, was awarded a gold medal for obtaining the highest total pinfalls among over a hundred bowlers to successfully label the Philippines as the best.

At a time when a highly popular national team is insisting to represent the country in a regional meet despite its terrible record, it is truly amazing to find a little known team that has overcome great odds to represent the country in the best possible way. I am truly honored to have met and interviewed such an incredible and inspiring team of bowlers. I just hope that people get to know its incredible story and allow the team to bring more honor and glory to the country, from here and abroad.