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TO
restore peace in the country’s race horse industry,
President Arroyo has replaced Philippine Racing
Commission (Philracom) chairman Florencio Fianza
with Philracom board member Jose Ferdinand Rojas
II.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said
in his weekly news conference that Rojas, a lawyer, will
assume his post as Philracom officer-in-charge beginning
today.
Ermita said Fianza will concentrate on his other job as
special envoy on transnational crime.
“To resolve the differences, the present
Philracom head will not be there by tomorrow
(Thursday)....That should resolve the issue of their
differences with the present head,” Ermita said.
Ermita expressed confidence that the new
Philracom head would be acceptable to the race horse
owners, who had earlier declared a racing holiday to
dramatize their demand for Fianza’s replacement over
policy differences.
“They already know him,” said Ermita.
Rojas, a practicing lawyer, has been a
Philracom commissioner since 2006 and a member of the
Philippine Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Organization
Inc. (Philtobo) since 1997. He served as board secretary
of the Philippine National Oil Co. from 1998 to 1999.
He obtained his law degree from the
Ateneo Law School after
graduating cum laude from the University of
Massachusetts in 1998 where he majored in economics and
political science. He is married to Patricia Bunye, the
daughter of Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye.
Meanwhile, the Marho declared the
sacking of Fianza as a moral victory and welcomed
Rojas’s appointment.
“This is a moral victory not just for
horse owners but for all sectors of the racing industry.
We want to thank the President for listening to our
clamor for a change in the leadership of the Philracom.
We also want to thank everybody who sacrificed with us
while the racing holiday was in effect,” said Marho
president and Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos.
Marho vice president Eric Tagle said the
horse owners will immediately seek an audience with
Rojas, a brother of former horse owner Rolly Rojas, to
thresh out the controversial policies on handicapping
that led to the racing holiday.
Tagle said races will resume today at
San Lazaro, with the three groups having allowed their
members to declare their horses for today’s program.
There will be no races, however, involving
three-year-old horses.
“For now, we want to have a clearer
picture of the policies being implemented by the
Philracom. But we are confident the new official at the
helm of the racing body will listen to what we have to
say. Rest assured that after everything has been
threshed out, we will be back at the races,” Tagle said.
“The result of the racing holiday that
we called over the haphazard implementation of the new
handicapping system showed that if all sectors of the
industry unite in trying times, we can achieve victory,”
said Abalos, who also thanked Klub Don Juan head Rudy
Pamintuan, Philtobo chief Nonoy Niles and Shop leader
Rellie de Leon for their support.
Fianza will leave for the United States
this weekend to attend to a “pressing Philippine matter”
as he leaves the agency’s chores to Rojas. The
60-year-old Fianza will fly to New York on Friday and
then later on to San Francisco for an arms-treaty
agreement with the
United States.
“This is a more pressing matter that
needs immediate attention,” added Fianza of his mission
to the United States. “I am going there on the directive
of Malacañang. And, to begin with, this job (Special
Envoy) is my first job before the Philracom.”
Fianza has been very firm in his stand
of “serving the betting public and coming up with a
level playing field” in thwarting accusations of the
combined groups that he is “incompetent” in running the
affairs of the agency.
The owners raised a howl when Fianza
implemented a handicapping scheme that confined
juveniles and three-year-old horses into running only
against each other while also not being able to go down
in group even after losses.
Fianza contended that this has been the
worldwide practice and that the old handicapping system
has been so flawed that it elicited game-fixing to a
huge degree. |
