PATAFA wants EJ Obiena out of national pool, charged with estafa

The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) has recommended dropping Olympian EJ Obiena from its national training pool following its investigation on the pole vaulter's alleged misuse of funds.

In a press conference on Tuesday, PATAFA also said it is set to file a criminal complaint against Obiena Olympian “insofar as the funds of PATAFA in the amount of 6000 Euros are concerned representing the coaching fees for the months of May 2018 to August 2018.”

Other recommendations of PATAFA include filing a complaint against Obiena's coach Vitaliy Petrov before World Athletics for violating the Integrity Code of Conduct, termination of Petrov as a PATAFA coach, and declaring Obiena's adviser James Lafferty as a persona non-grata.

The PATAFA report will be sent to the Commission on Audit (COA) and Philippine Sports Committee (PSC).

Included in the findings of PATAFA's investigation committee are:

• Obiena misappropriated 61,026.80 Euros, or around P3,661,608 which were released by PATAFA and PSC as payment for Petrov, but were not paid as of August 2021;
   
• Jeanette Obiena, EJ's mother, misappropriated P624,116.76 she claimed from the PSC "under pretext that it is a reimbursement of the coaching fee paid to Mr. Petrov for the months of January 2019 to March 2019."

Recently, the Philippine Olympic Committee declared PATAFA chief Philip Juico as persona non grata, following the recommendation of its ethics committee, amid the Obiena issue.

The PATAFA report will be sent to the Philippine Sports Committee (PSC) and Commission on Audit (COA).

Obiena, who represented the Philippines in Tokyo last year, has hit out at accusations from PATAFA over the use of funds for his training.

"Do you want medals or do you want accountant-athletes? Make a choice. I always believed my job as an athlete is to compete at the highest level. I make mistakes when you ask me to play accountant. This is not a crime," he added.

Obiena has said he did not take any amount of money that was for his coach.

"What's now clear, and we all agree.---I never took a single centavo of money from my coach. Not even the fees for transfer or exchange rates were deducted to his salary. I paid those out of pocket," he said.

'Rule based-organization'

Juico clarified that all the recommendations made by the federation's administrative committee are yet to be implemented as of writing as persons involved still need to be notified while also adding that filing of the cases would still undergo documentation and due process.

"The recommendations were just made public today so we will have to sit down and work out the mechanics, the procedure. People will have to be notified, arrangements have to be made. It is not an instant thing that we can do. Filing of cases will require documentations. So hindi pa nai-implement yan, [but] it will soon be implemented right after this presscon," said Juico.

The athletics chief added: "Liquidation should be in the form and in the manner that is prescribed by the Commission of Audit and the Philippine Sports Commission. 'Yan lang naman po ang basehan dito. 'Yun lang ang batayan. We are a rule-based organization and everyone is supposed to be looking at compliance to the rules." —JST, GMA News