POC includes EJ Obiena on Team Philippines' entry list for SEA Games

The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) has included pole vaulter EJ Obiena on Team Philippines' entry by names list that it will submit to the organizers of the 31st Southeast Asian Games.

In a statement, POC president Abraham "Bambol" Tolentino said the 26-year-old pole vaulter was among the 654 athletes who will try to defend the country’s overall championship in the biennial meet that Vietnam is hosting from May 12 to 23.

Obiena's inclusion in the list, however, does not automatically mean that he can compete as the POC is still doing everything it can to have the Olympian see action.

“EJ’s name must be there,” Tolentino said on Friday.

“It’s both frustrating and disappointing if we don’t see EJ setting a new SEA Games record in Hanoi. Logic plays a major role here for the need to include him in the SEA Games list, this is sports and he’s a national sports pride.”

The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) recently excluded Obiena from its SEAG roster despite the achievements of the world no. 5 pole vaulter.

The POC, Tolentino said, has written the World Athletics, the sport’s world governing body headed by running legend Sebastian Coe, on Obiena’s predicament.

POC added that this will not be the first time that they had to intervene as there was a similar case in the past where they had to lobby Asia track queen Lydia de Vega’s inclusion on the national team for the Asean Cup the country hosted at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in 1985.

—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA News