"Campo and I" Part 2

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 17 May 2010)

Campo as Taras Bulba -- he built up PCF from nothing, and slew it himself. Same thing happened to me. In 1998 I was working with GM Eugene Torre and Joey Antonio on their preparation for the Elista Olympiad later that year and the two GMs then wrote Hon. Chuckie Arellano, President of the PCF (also of Far East Bank and later on President of the SSS) that they wanted me to go along with the team as the chief analyst. Mr. Arellano responded by asking them to submit a budget for his approval. Apparently Mr. Arellano agreed to fund this request, but then passed his approval through the Chairman of the PCF (Art Borjal) and its Secretary-General (Edgar de Castro), both of whom objected strenuously. I believe some of the issues they raised were:

1) Who the heck is Bobby Ang?

2) The money that the GMs are requesting to fund Bobby Ang’s participation could be better used buying a new computer for the PCF office.

Anyway, they decided to "go to hell Bobby Ang," which was actually what I expected, but for some reason nobody told me about it. Anyway, I blissfully prepared myself for the competition in Elista, filed for a leave of absence from my teaching duties in UST College of Commerce, and suddenly had my bubble burst when the PCF people got the visas of the Philippine delegation but my name was not in the list.

The other players raised a bit of a protest and I remember that even Dyan Castillejo came to my house to interview me and the players on the situation of our chess team. Nothing came of all the protests, the team left without me and I sheepishly went back to UST to inform them that I would take up my load after all.

A few days later I suddenly received a phone call from Hon. Florencio Campomanes, calling from Elista. I didn’t know him yet, and was of course surprised at the questions he shot: "What are you doing in Manila? Aren’t you supposed to be here with the team?" I told him that the PCF decided against my participation. Then came something completely unexpected. Campo said: "Eugene and Joey say they need you. That is good enough for me. I will pay for your trip myself -- go to my travel agency and get your tickets."

This completely electrified me and I immediately went back to UST and told them my trip to Elista would push through and I’d have to give up my load for the semester -- the Dean at that time was Amelia Halili and she told me she was honored to approve the request.

Then I went to the travel agency and was told that Edgar de Castro had relented and the PCF would shoulder my tickets and will I please wait for them to call? Fine. I went home and waited, and the call never came.

When the team came back from Elista I was really seething with rage at how badly the PCF had treated me when all I wanted to do was to help, and Campo showed me the way -- "don’t get mad, get even. We will form our own federation and kick the PCF out of existence." Ahhh... revenge is a powerful motive and then and there the course of my life for the next few years was set.

We recruited Atty. Sammy Estimo to take care of the legal footwork and incorporated the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP), followed by an intensive campaign to recruit chess clubs into our fold. Sports columnist Bong Pedralvez was very helpful here, and I also remember that one of the first to sign up was the National Artists Chess Club of Odette Alcantara and Nestor Mata.

We had several brainstorming sessions in a bistro along Timog Ave., Quezon City (sorry, can’t remember the name but it has already folded anyway) with some businessmen who shall remain unnamed, and worked out the strategy -- the PCF is not a member of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) because they didn’t want any interference in the running of the Federation. This was a fatal mistake for them. The NCFP applied with the POC as the national sports body for chess and since we were the only one applying the POC granted the request. The PCF did not even notice what we were doing and were blissfully unaware that that ground has been swallowed up from beneath them.

Campo then went to the FIDE Presidential Board in 2000 and presented the petition of the NCFP -- they were the ones recognized by the Philippine government (through the POC) as the national chess body of the country, so naturally FIDE should recognize them too. This was all so logical, and FIDE of course granted the request.

It was only at this point that the PCF got wind of what had happened. They raised a howl of protest and sent a delegation to the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad to plead their case with the FIDE General Assembly, but there was nothing to be done -- Campo together with Toti Abundo had already laid the groundwork and the votation was no contest, the NCFP won with something like 80% of the vote. There are a lot of small stories I can tell about this phase and they can fill an entire book, but let that be for another day.

At this point I was already deep into the chess scene. I remember a dinner with President Kirsan, the FIDE Executive Director Omuku, Campo and Eugene Torre and a long discussion on the merits of GM Shirov’s request to shorten the time control from a 6-7 hour session per game to three hours. Also a long conversation with the representative of the US Chess Federation William Kelleher on the legality of the so-called Marshall System which produced the GM norm of Rogelio Barcenilla, Jan Gustaffson and a few more players.

The representatives of the Internet Chess Club (President Daniel "Darooha" Sleator, Marty "Lateknight" Grund and Edward "LittleEddie" Sagitov) also came to Istanbul to pitch the ICC as the official server of FIDE, it was in Istanbul that they met the representatives of Chess Assistant and LittleEddie worked out with them on the spot how to build in an interface to the ICC through their chess software.

In the meantime I had also organized the Asian Continental Under-16 Championship to be held in Bagac, Bataan, in November 2000, so I met with the other heads of delegations of the Asian countries to ask for their support to send their Under-16 champions to the tournament. I was always received with great friendliness, the reason being I was "Campo’s new boy."

It was shortly after the Istanbul Olympiad that my disagreements with Campo started over what I perceived to be his "interference." Was I really such an ungrateful idiot? Stuff like a 9-round team tournament with everything already organized, then Campo would come in and demand that it should be a 12-round event. This is not as simple as it might sound, of course. More rounds meant that we had to rent the tournament hall for a few more days, and we are not even sure if they will be available. We would also have to spend more on salaries of arbiters, stewards, etc. Plus the fact that I was single-handedly doing all of the organization plus raising sponsorship work -- I badly wanted to turn over the event to the people who would take care of actually running it (usually this was Willie Abalos and Gene Poliarco) in order to be able to concentrate on the next event.

Things worsened over the next few months and I quit in a huff around March of 2001. Immediately Campo got Sammy Estimo to take over as Executive Director of the NCFP and together they both managed to wipe my name out of chess in the country.

Campo once said that he regretted not having a chance to destroy my life completely. He couldn’t, of course, for unlike many of the unfortunate souls who came before me, chess was not a source of income for me. When I quit chess administration I went to work in the Equitable Card Network and found happiness there.

That is Campo -- he brings you up and oftentimes himself finds it necessary to destroy you. Taras Bulba. But you know what? It did not end so pleasantly, but those four years from 1998 to 2001 when we were closely working together to better the chess life in the country, were the best years of my life, and I owe them to Campo.
Last Friday I showed you Campo’s most famous game -- a loss to Mihail Tal. Now I will show you his favorite games from the Olympiads.

Campomanes, Florencio -- McGowan, George [A94]
Moscow ol (Men) fin-C Moscow (3), 1956
REQUIRES JAVA

Ramon Lontoc, Jr. had this book 50 Golden Years of Philippine Chess History and chose this game as representative of Campo’s style, especially the transition of a middlegame advantage to an endgame win.





On August 1999 we had the Freeman vs. Freeware Exhibition games between GM Joey Antonio and GNU-Chess. The computer program ran on an IBM Netfinity Server powered by an Intel Pentium 3-550 MHz CPU. During the opening program the master of ceremonies, JR Contreras of Iphil Communcations, approached me with an urgent request -- he is supposed to introduce Mr. Florencio Campomanes, but does not know him well enough, so could I please jot down a few words which he would just read?

No problem. I took out a piece of paper and wrote "the next speaker is Hon. Florencio Campomanes, the honorary President of the International Chess Federation, and the moving spirit behind chess in the Philippines in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s." There! That should do it. Proud of myself for this to-the-point but at the same time flowery inspiration, I approached the man himself and showed him the short intro, "is it all right with you if we just introduce you like this?" To my surprise, a big frown appeared on his face -- "Campo" looked me straight in the eye and asked: "And I was not the moving spirit in the ’50s?"

Touché.

Reader comments/suggestions are solicited. E-mail address is bangcpa@gmail.com