Position Paper Presented to the Philippine Senate
and the Philippine Olympic Committee
by the Billiards & Snooker Congress of the Philippines
5 May 2008
The Billiards & Snooker Congress of the Philippines is the national sports association (NSA) governing billiard sports in the country and representing the sport in the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC). Its membership comprises the many stakeholders of billiards, including players, promoters, billiards manufacturers and distributors, agents and managers, parlor owners, trainers, referees, and sheer lovers and fans of the sport.
We are making this appeal to the Senate and the Philippine Olympic Committee for clarification and guidance because of certain actions and directives by the Games and Amusement Board (GAB) that in our view impinge on sports' freedom from government interference, and the principle of open sports that has been well recognized internationally since the 1992 Olympics. These actions and directives are:
A directive last April 4, 2008 to Star Billiards Center, a partner organization of the BSCP, ordering its owner Mr. Sebastian Chua (BSCP treasurer) to report to the GAB offices to register and secure a permit for a pool tournament that it had scheduled for April 2008 and which it had been running for many years without government interference. In the directive, GAB chairman Eric Buhain said: "Please be informed that the Games and Amusement Board is the only national government under the Office of the President mandated to regulate and supervise all sports and games in the country and one of them is the sports billiard (sic)." He claimed that GAB has authority and supervision over any sports event offering a prize of P2000 or more. (Attachment A)
Attachment to the letter to Star Billiards of a copy of Resolution No. 98-10 of the GAB "Adopting policy guidelines for the exercise of the regulatory and supervisory powers of the Games and Amusement Board over Professional Sports", which was approved by the board on November 24, 1998, and which mandated that all tournaments offering cash prizes must secure an authority from the agency, and that all players joining the tournament are de facto professionals and must secure a GAB license. (Attachment B)
A memorandum of the GAB chairman on the agency's jurisdiction dated March 17, 2008, and sent to the BSCP president on March 17, 2008, alleging that in the selection of Filipino players for international competition, even in qualifying tournaments without cash prizes, GAB has authority of supervision and regulation.
A statement of Chairman Buhain, reported in the papers today (Monday, May 5) that "promoters and players who will stage or join qualifiers and tournaments not licensed or supervised by the agency will be immediately suspended."
A letter of Chairman Buhain to players who participated in the qualifiers for the Guinness 9-Ball Tour to report to the GAB office to secure a license to exercise their profession; otherwise they would be barred from participating in any future professional events/promotions.
We place in issue the legality and reasonableness of the above actions on the following grounds and circumstances:
First, the decree which GAB cites as the source of its authority (PD No. 871) was issued under martial law on January 6, 1976 and was never meant to cover sports in general. It specifically cited "professional basketball games and other professional games", not sports. And it was meant to correct game-fixing in the PBA that had occurred at the time. We maintain that billiards in all its forms is a sport and is officially recognized as such by the International Olympic Committee since Feb. 5, 1992. In the same way that many other sports are not under the supervision of GAB today, we submit that billiards should not be subject to GAB supervision.
Second, during the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, who issued PD 871, we are of the belief that billiards was never declared nor envisioned to be subject to this decree. Up to the time he left office, the GAB under his government did not consider billiards as a professional game. What it regarded as a professional game was professional basketball under the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), and perhaps professional boxing, horseracing and cockfighting. If the author of the decree did not intend it to cover billiards and other sports, why should its executors today expand its scope to extend over all sports? In our view, this is an arrogation of authority that is not in the law.
Third, we believe that GAB's basis for distinguishing between professional players and amateur players – namely, competing in an event that offers prize money – is outdated and has been overtaken by the acceptance in 1992 of professional athletes into the Olympics. When the era of open sports was proclaimed, the basis for professionalism changed. Today, it is a settled principle in international sports that an athlete becomes a professional for being paid to play, not for competing in an event with a cash prize; and a league or tournament becomes professional because it explicitly desires to be classified as professional. In this sense, the PBA and its players are professional. But those who only compete in tournaments for the love of the sport cannot be considered professionals even if the tournament itself offers cash rewards to the winners.
A case in point would be the Star Billiards tournament where neither the players nor the host of the tournament wanted the event to be classified as professional. It has been a tournament where players of different levels of skills can play against one another, i.e. A players would play against B, C or D players through handicapping rules. For the GAB to clamp down on them because they saw a story about it in the newspapers is stretching its claws too far! Following its policies, everyone in that tournament would be required to get a GAB license annually.
GAB's basis for defining professionalism has been rendered untenable by the fact that many governments, including our own, are offering cash rewards for winning medals in the SEA games, the Asian Games and the Olympics. Would an athlete in, say, track and field, lose his or her amateur status if he/she receives a cash prize for medaling? That would be absurd.
Fourth, we protest the singling out of billiards by GAB for supervision and regulation as both discriminatory against our sport and capricious. Discriminatory because its supposed policy covering tournaments offering cash prizes is not being applied to all sports and games. Tournaments with cash prizes regularly take place in chess, tennis, bowling, beach volleyball, and other sports, and they are not subjected to GAB supervision.
This policy towards billiards is also capricious because GAB has been enforcing this policy selectively. Many tournament promoters do not secure permits. We can place on evidence hundreds of tournaments with over P2000 in prizes that were not policed by the agency.
Fifth, we submit that GAB's demand for billiards players to secure a GAB license annually is an unreasonable imposition on tens of thousands of Filipino players, who mostly can hardly make ends meet. The cost of a GAB license is P950 yearly; and in addition each player is required to get medical tests that cost nearly P2000. There are very few players who can afford these fees; and still fewer who would willingly want to pay them. The effect of this policy is to infringe on the livelihood and occupation of thousands. And this is contrary to the national government's policy of encouraging and supporting every citizen in his livelihood.
Sixth, GAB seeks from tournament organizers license fees, a percentage from gate receipts, and a share from television revenues. These revenue policies result in double taxation in the case of gate receipts (local governments collect amusement taxes) and TV revenues (promoters pay BIR taxes on sponsorship income). These are heavy impositions that would reduce promoters to penury were they to pay them. As things are, it is already very difficult to secure the sponsorships necessary to mount tournaments like the national championships and the world championship.
Seventh, we are concerned that GAB's policies toward billiards will have a stifling effect on the development and promotion of our sport all over the country and among people of all ages and gender. When people must pay to engage in any sport, they would opt for another activity which they are free to enjoy. And when tournament organizers must pay sums of money to mount any form of pool competition, they would prefer to do something else. This would be a great pity considering the dynamic growth of billiards in our country in recent years because of our holding of the world pool championship in Manila and the success of many Filipino players in competition which brought glory to our country.
Finally, we submit that GAB's interference in BSCP's selection of players for international competition is an outright violation of the time-honored principle of sports' freedom from government interference under the Olympic Charter. When GAB says that it can meddle in BSCP's qualifying events, whether they are with or without purse, is arrogation of powers not within the law and not allowed under international sports.
We believe there is urgent need to resolve these questions and issues, because on their resolution may lie the future of billiards in the Philippines. If the source of this arrogation of powers and draconian policies is PD 871, then we submit that it's time the law is reexamined, amended or even repealed.
It would be unfortunate if an anachronistic decree from a bygone time were to result in the regression of a sport which we Filipinos love and wherein we excel.
contributed by Marlon Bernardino
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