Beijing 2008: The view from Manila

Perhaps the best summation of the Beijing Olympics came from Sophie Richardson, the Asia director for Washington, DC-based Human Rights Watch.

"The image that people have come away with internationally is of incredible athletes, great architecture and a kind of creepy government."

She got all three parts right.

The incredible athleticism of the world’s sporting best has been a joy to behold.

The new buildings that have reshaped Beijing have been stunning. The Bird’s Nest is a true architectural marvel, as is the Water Cube beside it.

But the creepiness! This was brought home by two acts of deliberate fraud: first, the absurd decision to replace a talented child singer with a more photogenic lip-syncher during the opening ceremonies; and second, the Machiavellian policy of establishing official protest zones, which turned out to be a trap for activists. According to Reuters, at least 77 applications to stage a demonstration at the official protest zones were filed. Not a single one was approved. Give the Chinese government a gold medal for image engineering.

The Philippine contingent to the Beijing Olympics returns home without a medal, except for a gold in a demonstration sport. The competition has blanked us in the last three Olympics. Atlanta, in 1996, was the last time a Filipino athlete climbed the podium to claim a medal in an Olympic event. Surely we can do better than this?

Part of the answer lies in the fact of competition. As we struggle to establish our Olympic program (if it can be called that; the word assumes a consistency of purpose and a seriousness of resolve we do not have), the world has zipped along, leaving us even further in the dust.

The only way to do well in the Olympics is to plan for the long term, and stick to the plan.

Sadly for us, the short-term thinking that afflicts much of our politics undermines our sporting program, too. We cannot train for the Olympics on a year’s timetable; considering how much the bar of performance has been raised in the last 12 years, we cannot train for the Olympics even on a four-year schedule. We must prepare not only for the next Olympics, but the one beyond that.