Ex-RP Captain for Intchess

My post last week, Campo: Outsourcing Is Insulting, has made it to the mainstream in the RP press. Ex-Olympiad captain and now prominent columnist Bobby Ang has a rejoinder on the whole matter in his "Chess Piece" article for Business World.

Responding to Campo and others who have criticised the NCFP's move to outsource, Bobby writes:

Gosh, I am so sorry, but I have to disagree with all this criticism. It smacks of what President Manuel L. Quezon used to say: “I’d prefer a Philippines run like hell by Filipinos, rather than one run like heaven by the Americans.” All this is nice to hear, but the truth of the matter is whoever runs the organization like heaven is the one we all have to support.

The Managing Director of Intchess Asia is Mr. Ignatius Leong, the Secretary General of FIDE and an esteemed professional manager. Together with some partners he started Intchess in 1996 and now they handle the chess education of more than 70 schools in Singapore. If the national chess organization was as good as the Singaporeans then how come so many of our players have transplanted themselves (in many cases together with their families) to the Lion City? Look at all these names: International Masters Luis Chiong, Lito Maninang, Rico Mascarinas, Enrique Paciencia, Domingo Ramos, National Master Eric Gloria, and Arbiters/Trainers Louie Polistico, Lincoln Yap and Joey Moseros. And the exodus has not yet stopped.

Bobby's article should be available online by next week over at IndoChess. Meanwhile, you can read his past articles, just look on the right side-bar of that site.

And one more thing. Mr Ang refers to yours truly as a "Filipino engineer now based in Sydney". Well, of course, I'm no engineer!