The Philippine Sports Commission has offered its sincerest apology to the Eala family for posting “unintended misinformation” with regards to the financial assistance being received by tennis young gun Alex.
“PSC would like to correct the previous posting made today of a 3 Million assistance for Alex Eala. It was unintended misinformation,” read the agency’s statement.
“While there was an approved board resolution to this effect, it was later clarified that this is still being processed, awaiting required documents.”
This comes as moments after Alex’s semifinals finish in the 2020 French Open, PSC posted a congratulatory message to her, claiming that it played a part in supporting her training and competitions abroad.
It claimed that the PSC backed Alex with PHP three-million for her tournament travels and two-month training abroad while allotting PHP 1.5-million for her six internationals tournaments played since January of 2020.
“We are happy to be part of her journey,” said PSC Chairman Butch Ramirez in the post.
Besides dad Michael, Alex’s mom Rizza also chimed in denouncing PSC’s post.
“First, we are thankful to the government for congratulating Alex and allowing courtesy calls with officials, and giving her country accreditation paperwork required for travels. Alex even got a recognition from Congress for her Australian Open Junior Doubles Championship,” said Rizza, who is a former national team athlete in swimming and current Chief Finance Officer for Globe Telecom.
“But for the record, we have not received any of the funds in the millions of pesos mentioned here in the post. In fact, we have been trying to reimburse Alex’s travel expenses for the Australian Open that happened last January, but we are being given a run around at the PSC.”
Though they have met with PSC officials numerous times, it is still a “verbal promise” up until today.
Michael, who is a successful businessman, and Rizza have been funding the travels and trainings abroad of Alex and son Miko, also a rising star in tennis.
PSC, on the other hand, vowed that it will not back out of its commitment to Alex. It said that the funds will arrive as soon as the processing ends.
“We apologize to the public and the family of Ms. Eala for any misunderstanding this may have caused,” PSC’s statement continued.
“The PSC stands by its commitment to support Ms. Eala on previously approved and future training activities and competition.”
