Members of the Philippine contingent competing in the 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Hanoi, Vietnam who bring home medals will receive cash benefits for their achievements, Senator Sonny Angara said on Thursday,
As sponsor and author of Republic Act 10699 or the National Athletes and Coaches Benefits and Incentives Act, Angara said gold medalists in the SEA Games would each get P300,000, while silver and bronze medalists would receive P150,000 and P60,000, respectively.
“Congratulations to Mary Francine Padios for giving the country its first gold medal in the ongoing SEA Games with her masterful performance in the Pencak Silat women artistic singles finals,” Angara said.
“We expect to see more victories by our Philippine Team and hopefully, even surpass the 149 gold medal haul in the 2019 games,” he added.
Apart from Padios’ gold, among the early medal winners were the Philippine men’s beach handball team, men’s lightweight double sculls, and Helen Aclopen Talongen (Kurash 48-kg) who all bagged silver; while George Baclagan (Kurash 90-kg), Charlie Quelino (Kurash 52-kg), and the women’s quadruple sculls the secured bronze medals.
For the team events with five or more participants, Angara clarified that each team member is entitled to receive 25 percent of the cash incentives for individual medal winners.
In the case of competitions with less than five participants per team, they will receive the same cash incentives as individual medal winners and will divide this equally among themselves.
The law also grants cash incentives to the coaches of the winning athletes or teams equivalent to 50 percent of the cash reward for gold, silver and bronze medalists. After seeing the impressive performance of the Philippine contingent in the 30th SEA Games, Angara sought to increase the cash incentives given to the medalists.
In December of 2019, Angara filed Senate Bill 1225, which seeks to expand the coverage of incentives granted to national athletes and coaches through an amendment to RA 10699.
Under Angara’s proposal, SEA Games medalists will receive P400,000 (gold), P200,000 (silver), and P100,000 (bronze).
For the Asian Beach Games and Asian-level competitions held every two years with at least 25 countries participating, and qualifying competitions for world-level and Asian-level games: gold medalists will receive a cash-incentive of P600,000 from the present P500,000; silver medalists will get P350,000 from the current P250,000; and bronze medalists will bring home P150,000 from P100,000.
“Sports continue to provide us with, not only entertainment, but also a respite from the problems and challenges we face every day, including the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years and more recently, the fatigue and stress of the campaign for the national elections. This is why we must continue to recognize the achievements of our athletes, who through hard work and the dedication to their craft, give us inspiration and something to cheer about,” Angara said.