HWC Diary #29

We welcome Ninong Bito Mantecon on board the 2008 Homeless World Cup project. We received an email yesterday confirming his support and await his decision regarding which company we shall acknowledge on his behalf. Thank you Ninong Bito for accepting our invitation. Welcome, welcome, welcome. On a party note:"Kublai's Rock for Homeless Team Philippines" is a benefit party being thrown by Kublai's Rock Mongolian Bar and Grill on October 24, Friday, in Magallanes, Makati City. The owners of 'Kubs', namely: Dong Longa, Manuel de Jesus, Christian Lozano, Poch and Mike Camahort, Bito and Javy Mantecon have agreed to support the RP Seleksyon with a fund-raising bash. The players will drop by for a few 'soft drinks and juices'.

PinoyHero: Jay Lagat, an OFW, emailed pinoysoccer.com wanting to contribute, in any way, to the Homeless World Cup project. He said he had some earnings from his small shop and wanted to donate to the team. He also offered to send balls. "Hey Jay. Maraming salamat po... from the entire team". Jay's in Cabuyao, Laguna. Check out his blog and see for yourself: http://ardylljay.blogspot.com.

2009MilanHWC: Loloy Fuentebella will be the 2009 HWC point man in Region 4-B as plans to stage a countrywide version for next year's event continue to roll. The provinces in Region 4-B are Marinduque, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Romblon and Palawan.

HWC Diary #28

By 10am, the team had climbed the Gawad Kalinga stage and introduced itself to thousands of kids, parents and GK volunteers. The RP Seleksyon to the Homeless World Cup was presented on stage and as each gave his/her name and age over the microphone, one could sense both nervousness and pride in their voices. The stage presentation at the Gawad Kalinga Expo Anniversary was a new experience for each.

YES, IMAGINE THIS ONE! ----- Coaches Hans Smit, Jess Landagan and Marlon Maro, Jeepney mag publisher Bill Shaw, and ABS-CBN TV Host Atom Araullo got into the hard court with the RP Seleksyon to the delight of camera men from ABS-CBN 2 and IBC-13. ABS-CBN was there to take footage for their 'Kalye' TV program that Atom hosts while IBC shot footage for their tri-network simulcast of One Morning over channels 4, 9 and 13 on Tueday, the 14th. For over 30-minutes, pinoy football legends Hans Smit, Jess Landagan and Marlon Maro went toe to toe against the Seleksyon. It made for great TV footage, memories for the players, and huffing and puffing moments for the 'RP Seniors'.
De La Salle University coach Hans Smit visited, played and gave motivational talk to the players before and after scrimmages; Atom Araullo did a fairly long TV-interview with player Ron Ron which will be featured in the 'Kalye' TV show soon. Good Saturday.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Seleksyon was the guest for over an hour in the only football show on Philippine radio....Football Connection, 12:15-1:30 every Saturday, and hosted by Cecile Quimlat and top coach Bob Salvacion over AM station 918 DZSR (Sports Radio).
When asked by Cecile which were his memorable moments since being named to the Seleksyon, player RonRon said, "the dinners".
Those dinners could mean our eating out in Jollibee, McDonalds, Chow King, Max, all the after-practice food...or Kublais Rock or Amici pizza pasta or some canteen. But the wonderful thing in his answer is the honesty and sincerity. This is the stuff that gives off the good feelings for the team and the main reason why they are liked. Of course, they love the football training and the practices...but the meals mean so much too. They understand Grace.

There are seven (7) weekends to kickoff in Melbourne, Australia. The team continues to work on its character and skills.

2009MilanHWC:Tito Clemente, chief of Butuan-Agusan del Norte Football Association has confirmed interest to organize Region 13, CARAGA, for the September, 2009 Milan tournament. Provinces in that region include Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur.


Meanwhile... RP Lady Booters bowed out of the AFF Women's Championships after being beaten 7-0 by Australia and 12-0 by Thailand... One thing for sure, we will back next year...

P6.93M Contingency Fund and an Underequipped PNP

The Philippine National Police delegates to Russia were provided by the Philippine government 6.93 million pesos as contingency fund. A fund, just in case, will be used for emergency purposes in Russia. That's it, 6.93 Million Pesos as emergency fund for some PNP generals.

Possibly for a purchase of tons of caviar and thousands of liters of vodka.

As we all know, there are about 20% of the PNP personnel who have no guns. The SWAT patrol car of Calamba City PNP looks more like a push cart to me than a Toyota FX. A police outpost in Cabuyao is more like a 'tambayan' than an outpost.

So, here's my take on how far the contingency fund will go if smartly spent by the PNP.

1. 770 Norinco 9mm pistols. Twinpines at Festival Mall sells Norinco cal. 9mm at around PhP 9,000.00. This means there will be 700 more police officers that can be armed with a P6.93M budget.

2. 300 MAP1 Tanfoglio/Armscor pistols. I bought mine at PhP21,000.00 at Aquila Trading at Harrison Plaza, Malate. This means that there will be 300 more police officers that can be armed with a P6.93M budget.

3. 141,428.571 liters of premium gasoline. At 10 liters budget allocation per day per patrol car, the P6.93M budget can fuel 200 patrol cars for 70 days.

4. Seven ambulances for the SOCO officers.

5. If one set of PNP uniform costs P6,000.00, the P6.93M budget could dress around 1,100 police personnel.

6. If one set of shoes for the PNP personnel costs P2500.00, the P6.93M budget could be provided for 2,772 police officers.

7. If the basic salary for entry level Police Rank (PO1) is P12,000.00 per month, the P6.93M budget could feed 577 police officers and the families for a month.

8. 6,900 units of electric fans for the Police Outposts.

9. 200 units of personal computers for the Police Outposts which still uses the outdated typewriters.

10. 8 more patrol cars, 30 more M4A1 carbines for the SWAT officers, 120 units of AK47's, 866,250 rounds of reload pistol ammos, 330,00 rounds of factory load ammos... and a lot more...

Does the contingency fund for the generals and wives in Moscow really worth it???

Damn it!

Homeless World Cup Diary

From now on, I will be posting the Homeless World Cup Diaries and everything about Philippine Football. The HWC posts are republished from the emails I received from Mr. Ed Formoso of thejeepney.com.

HWC Diary #27

Indescribable!

The RP Selection to the Homeless World Cup found its story in Page 1 of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last Sunday...we was speechless....as in 'We'. The HWC was 'front-paged' and we could only stare and read and re-read all day. Thanks to Elvira Mata for writing it as it is...and then some. To add height to the Sunday high, Krista Montealegre, sportswriter for The Manila Times came out with her piece on the team too.

On Monday, Business Mirror sports columnist and blogger Rick Olivares had his say in an aptly titled piece, 'The Home Team'. Rick also posted the video he took on you-tube, which can now be seen on the team's two partner websites: pinoysoccer.com and pffmanila.org

By Wednesday, the players were in 10 newspapers after their appearance at the
Philippine SportsWriters Association forum courtesy of host, Bong Pedralvez. It's been an incredible first four days of the week for the RP 'Seleksyon'.

Tuesday night was at dinner with Ninong Mike Camahort in his Kublai's Rock Mongolian Bar and Grill. All the players and all their coaches received goodies from the big boss of 2Go, who is sponsoring the team's trip to the final camp in Bacolod with Ninong Charlie Cojuangco, November 9-24.

2Go caps and T-shirts for all. The team got interviewed in-between desserts. Lots of pics and goodies from 2Go. Kublai's Rock part-owner and manager Poch Camahort, older brother of Mike, laid it out on the table for the team. And before heading home from this past-bedtime affair, the players were treated to something else-----"Take Out's!" The players took home another round of dinner for their midnight snacks.

On public transports back to their institutions, the team traveled stuffed but verily satisfied.

On a quieter note, team Ninong Danny Moran sent a mass card and money as donation for the burial of little Diana, Nomer's 6-year old sister. After telling Nomer about Danny's financial assistance, Nomer remained silent for a few long seconds. And then he whispered the meekest "Thank you po" you'll ever hear. We heard his heart speak. And then we were speechless. "Thank you Danny, from everyone here."

2009MilanHWCnews: Dave Araral of the South Cotabato Football Association has agreed to work with us in the Milan Homeless World Cup qualifiers. Dave will head Region 12.

From the Asean Football Federation website, Philippine Lady Booters defeated Singapore 3-1 on their first match of the AFF Women's Championships in Vietnam. Rachelle Delos Reyes found her header just two minutes into the game but equalized three minutes later by Sun Jie's freekick.

Ruchell Latap scored on the 23rd minute and skipper Marielle Benitez put up the finishing goal on the 88th minute.

The Philippine Lady Booters will meet Australia later today. The Aussies beat last year's runner Thailand on an impressive 2-0 win.

Go Philippines!

Homeless World Cup

I read a 'surprising' article from Philippine Daily Inquirer last Sunday about the Homeless World Cup that will be held at Melbourne Australia this coming December. 'Surprising' because I haven't seen much newspaper articles for football here in the Philippines where Basketbal is really popular. 'Surprising' because our Basketball-crazy nation is sending a contingent to the Homeless World Cup. This will be the first time and we have the youngest teams of the tournament.

As a football fan myself (and I never been a fan of basketball), I could only wish our Philippine Football Federation (PFF) could have done so much to promote the Beautiful Game. Ironically, PFF was one of the founding Football Associations of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and up to this year, we still haven't qualified for the ASEAN Football Federations Cup. We were better last year though but we still never got through the preliminaries. We even pitted some Fil-Foreigners for the Philippine Team but still did not got through.

On December, we are sending our Youth Team to the Homeless World Cup. I would say our team is well prepared, supported, very determined... and 'homeless.'

According to pinoysoccer (www.pinoysoccer.com), a handfull of ninongs already expressed support for the team. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Eric Guttierez of SR Metals Inc., Danny Moran of Amici Pizza, Monchu Garcia Accel Sports, Superferry, GNC Philippines are few of the Ninongs and more are chipping in including individuals who just want to help these kids take another chance in life.

Know more about our Homeless World Cup National Team at www.pinoysoccer.com and the PDI article here...

Below is the clip made by Bleachers' Brew and NTDTV.com





And to our National Team, good luck guys. Though you are not yet known, you will have a name soon... All the best!

For those who want to support, please visit the PinoySoccer website.