A PROMISE is a promise.

And for Manila Hotel President Joey Lina, he had to keep a promise he made to our women’s national football team pre pandemic days when the dream of making it to the FIFA World Cup was still just a dream.

Joey was hosting the team for a lunch, or dinner then.

He told them if and when the team makes it to the World Cup and wins even just one game, he will treat them to a stay plus meals at Manila Hotel.

Well, payback time came recently.

Our girls qualified for this year’s World Cup, one of the 32 countries represented, and the country went wild when we defeated host country New Zealand with a goal by Sarina Bolden.

When the team returned from the competition, from the airport, it went straight to Manila Hotel for the promised treat by Joey, who personally welcomed them and even joined them over meals.

Well, the fact that his daughter is the mother hen of the national team and who reminded him of his promise then, left Joey with no choice, and he had no second thought about honoring his promise.

Joey after all, is involved with football and is the President of the Laguna Football Federation.

Also, he was the one who played a major role in the creation of the Philippine Sports Commission( PSC) in the early 90s as the successor of Gintong Alay as the funding arm for Philippine sports.

I also remember him as the initiator of the Create A Sports Hero prohect for the 1991 SEA Games here.

It was a revival of the sports godfather program and I was still working with sportsnan-businessman Archie King at Victoria Court, and he decided to adopt windsurfing and provided support to Richard Paz.

Not surprising because Archie was a windsurfer himself. Victoria Court even sponsored a windsurfing tournament at Lake Caliraya, then a favorite site for windsurfers.

Now how did I know about Joey’s promise?

I was with PSC Commissioner Fritz Gaston when he met with old friends Christian Tan and Johnny Tam at the Manila Hotel last Thursday.

It was a social meeting reminiscing their good old days in the old Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP) .

And it turned out Johnny had arranged a courtesy call with Joey and brought all of us.

In my case, I have interviewed Joey in the past and he still remembers me.

He extended an invitation to the PSC Board for lunch where he can share his thoughts on the role of PSC particularly on grassroots sports.

His position though was that the Department of Education should have the lead role in this area , having the infrastructure and manpower complenent, students abd teachers to undertake the task.

Joey also promised to work on returning sports as part of the DepEd. Remember it used to be known as the Department of Education, Culture, and Sports( DECS), but along the way, sports was dropped though the Palarong Pambansa remains under its wing.

I agree with the idea.

Going back to the earlier meeting with Christian and Johnny, the talks turned to the Tong Lian basketball league which started in the early 70s and where the likes of Atoy Co, Lim Eng Beng, and Christian Tiu saw action.

Unfortunately due to some rifts within, the league stopped pre-pandemic days and Christian has been trying to revive it.

He says it is almost a done deal but just in case the schools that bolted the league before do not come in, he is prepared to start the league anew September or October this year.

The group also talked about the Federation of School Sports Association of the Philippines (FESSAP) and its membership in the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and the possibility of its recognition by the PSC in the future.

But I believe that would involve a lot of discussions to work out a working relationship.

FISU is a separate international entity involved in university sports, serving as an IOC of sorts while FESSAP serves as the local NSA.

But believe me, this side involves a lot of things to talk about,okay?

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