{"id":677,"date":"2005-12-02T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-02T10:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/?p=677"},"modified":"2006-10-08T16:01:46","modified_gmt":"2006-10-08T16:01:46","slug":"679462-of-sea-games-thailand-versus-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=677","title":{"rendered":"[675] Of SEA Games: Thailand versus the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current SEA Games<\/a> (tag)<\/a> has been rather entertaining so far. Diplomatically-wise, that is. Recently, Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, accused that the host, the Philippines of being biased in officiating the regional biennial game<\/a>. And it doesn’t end there: Thaksin plans to raise the issue at the upcoming ASEAN meeting<\/a> in Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n

Me – WTF?<\/p>\n

But anyway, the Filipino President Gloria Arroyo then ordered an investigation into the allegation<\/a>. The investigation, concluded 24 hours later revealed no unfair officiating has occurred.<\/p>\n

Yes – the Philippines is accused of cheating and the Philippines conducted the investigation and the Philippines cleared themselves up. I suppose “conflict of interest” is an unheard concept. Not that I’m accussing of anything but still, it’s fishy.<\/p>\n

However, that’s not the best part. The best thing is that some Filipinos conducted a protest – yes, a real protest<\/a> – in front of the Thai embassy in Manila over Thaksin’s remark. Soon afterwards, Filipino legislators are demanding apology from Thaksin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Folks, cool down. Take a deep breathe and think. It’s just a game. Stop acting like kids.<\/p>\n

I mean, look at Malaysia. Vietnam cheated Malaysia<\/a> but Malaysians aren’t over the top about it. At most, the Malaysian delegates lodged an official, in game, protest. What happens in a game stays in that game. Be a sportman.<\/p>\n

Hell, look at how Malaysians deal with real diplomatic issues – while Indonesians were willing to go up in arms against Malaysia over Ambalat not too long ago, Malaysians just took it easy. Have a cup of teh tarik<\/em>. Chill out. Oh, you want to ganyang<\/em> Malaysia? Mari, mari<\/em>. No need to gaduh-gaduhlah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Point is, relax. Even Malaysia and Singapore aren’t at each other throat, yet. If Malaysia and Singapore don’t plan to get into a little squabbling, then nobody should be. Please, there’s no need to outdo us.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Thaksin does make a bad diplomat. Still, he brought up a legitimate concern. The Philippines needs to be more professional in hosting the Games. Already, several other countries are having some misgiving about this edition of the Games<\/a>. Rigging your own election might be your internal matter but the SEA Games doesn’t quite fall into that category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current SEA Games (tag) has been rather entertaining so far. Diplomatically-wise, that is. Recently, Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, accused that the host, the Philippines of being biased in officiating the regional biennial game. And it doesn’t end there: Thaksin plans to raise the issue at the upcoming ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asean","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}