Original Sail Philippines Statement made in1998

Sail Philippines does not normaly issue statements of opinion about events, people, organizations etc. that appear on it's listing pages.

However, in this case, we are making an exception.

Many of the stories that have reached us about this event by participants or members if the "Philippine Sailing Association's Race Committee"  who have been involved with the event, have been very negative. We feel that in the interest of the Sport of Sailing, it is best that we speak up about this event rather than wait until bad experiences turn sponsors off to the whole sport, and/or publicity hurts the sport in general.

The purpose of this message is to get the organizers to sit up and take notice that they need to review their policies. Sailing as a sport is not a joke and the rules are not to be flaunted. They have guessed right that this is an event that will really take off. They have the right venue, the right boat, but they need to put some order into it. This is not supposed to be a rigged gambling event, but an international sports event.

As far as we know, this event is no longer sanctioned  by Sail Philippines, The Philippine Sailing Association, The Manila Yacht Club, or any organization affiliated with the ISAF. If a letter signed by any of the above can be provided to us, we will change the statement above. These organizations will "support" the event in the hopes that they will clean it up a bit, but they are not "the organizers" of the event.

The event does not follow ISAF rules, or any rules that cannot be blatantly broken by selected participants (example: It seems that certain paricipants may blatantly cheat, miss marks, and still be proclaimed the winners by the organizers). Reportedly, There is a lot of money involved and the bets are serious by local standards.

Journalists, Judges, Sponsors, should be circumspect about dealing with the organizers and demand everything up front.(example: If you are promised a round trip ticket, make sure you get it before going to the event. Ask for your hotel voucher before you go to Boracay. Ask for a small meal allowance rather than accept that meals will be arranged for you.)

THIS IS NOT HOW WE RACE IN THE PHILIPPINES!!! THIS IS NOT HOW WE RUN RACES HERE!!! WE HAVE NEVER HAD TO MAKE ANY STATEMENT LIKE THIS BEFORE.

THIS IS THE ONLY SAILING EVENT IN THE PHILIPPINES WHICH IS RUN THIS WAY, TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

It pains us greatly that this event which has such great potential and international appeal is so poorly run by people who have no background in sailing and that the names of certain organizations have been associated with the event. The organizers take exception to this statement, and claim the PSA ran the racing. In fact, as we understand it, the representatives of thePSA disqualified the winners for cheating , but they were reinstated by the organizer.   The source of this information was no other than the PSA representative himself!

It is our hope that this event, which has terriffic potential, will be better run in the future, because we feel it would be an ideal showcase for promoting sailing in the Philippines, as well as promoting the Philippines to the rest of the world.

Since this page was first put up, it does seem that the organizers of this event have sat up and taken notice. They have even put up a page that tries to diffuse this page. This is good.  This page may have hit the spot, and we hope that this year they will really cean up their act - Because there's nothing we'd love to do more THAN TAKE THIS PAGE DOWN!

And by all indications that day is coming soon!

Sail Philippines

To go to the website, click HERE

NewflasH!
The Philippine Sailing Association Board of Directors met in early February 1999  to discuss this Paraw event. It was decided and reiterated that this event WOULD NOT BE HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES of the Philippine Sailing Association.

However, it was also decided that the PSA WOULD SUPPORT the event by fielding 2 teams in boats that were originally planned to be built for the fore-runner of this event, the Iloilo Paraw Regatta. The PSA boats will be 17 ft long, and are the prototypes for a 2 man class boat that is intended to be "one design". They will generally be much smaller than the Boracay paraws, but they will be introduced to initiate a new class for future years.  It was noted that the Iloilo event is much better organized, and it may become a model for paraw racing, which the PSA wants, and needs, to encourage.

At this time , it seems to be the feeling that the Iloilo teams will not join the event because of the alleged rampant cheating,
but the PSA is going to try to convince them to come because there will be a new twist this year.

The Regatta is being named after the Admiral of the Philippine Navy, who is, coincidentally the President of the PSA!
As such, the Admiral has graciously accepted because he feels that Paraw racing is very important to the culture of the country and could pave the way for local sailors to enter the sport.
The Admiral has decided to station a gunboat and man it with a full contingent of Navy personnell! is good experience for the Navy, and should be good for the regatta.
Sail Philippines wishes Admiral Santos the best success in his noble effort to turn this important event around.
BEST OF LUCK and GODSPEED!
 
 Aug 1999 update
One member of this year's race committee, which was composed of 2 very competent race officers, stated that the problems encountered in the races were not the fault of the organizer, but were mostly caused by other participants, on and off the course. He felt that these incidents were beyond the control of the organizer.
The race officers will probably be back next year and they hope to bring illustrated rules with them, in hopes of trying to educate the participants to race to a semblance of the ISAF rules regarding sportsmanship and rules of the road.   They spoke much more highly of the regatta than the previous race committee.
They felt that this year there was no problem with their accomodations, food etc. and whatever was promised to them was delivered.  They stated that this page had outlived its usefullness and should be taken down.
Hopefully, with more positive statements like this, especially if we get some about improved sportsmanship, we WILL take this page down. And I hope its SOONER rather than later, because I'd LOVE to take this page down