RP may shorten SEAG amid financial woes

RP may shorten SEAG amid financial woes

Associated Press, Manila, Philippines

Next year's Southeast Asian Games could be shortened to help ease the Philippines' financial burden, but the event is in no danger of collapse, an official was quoted Wednesday as saying.

"Definitely, there's no cancellation," Roberto Pagdanganan, chairman of the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee, told the Manila Bulletin daily. "We have to trim down everything, but doing it doesn't mean lowering the quality of the games."

The Philippines is hosting the 11-nation games in 2005 amid questions of whether the country's mounting debt and a ballooning budget deficit may cripple government spending for an event estimated to cost about 1 billion pesos (US$17.8 million; euro 14 million).

Pagdanganan said the financial plan is expected to be trimmed and the games could be shortened from 10 to eight days.

Sports officials plan meetings next week to discuss shortening the competition, which opens in November 2005, using fewer venues, cutting the number of events and trimming the budget for the opening ceremony by about half.

Sen. Companera Pia Cayetano, a former member of the national volleyball team, expressed concern Tuesday that the 2005 budget allocated only 30 million pesos (US$530,000; euro 435,000) for the games.

"With barely a year before the SEA Games, our sports officials should, once and for all, take a decisive stand on whether we can successfully host the games," she said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo earlier promised the games would go ahead with government and private sector support.