Marlon Avenido stands over the fallen body of Indonesia’s Basuhi Nugruo during their taekwondo preliminary bout in the Southeast Asian Games Thursday. (Photo by ALBERT GARCIA)

VIENTIANE, Laos — The Philippines sent four fighters in the taekwondo finals Thursday and was fighting to keep pinweight Bill Vicera in the boxing event in Day 2 of the 25th Southeast Asian Games.

A day after winning one of five poomsae final events, the RP jins went 4-of-5 in the semifinals with two-time Olympian Mary Antoinette Rivero leading the advance.

Rivero, 21, defeated home bet Valy Mathmanisone with a kick in the head, but needed a video replay to have it counted.

The Filipina landed on the floor with one foot stuck on the Vietnamese head, but the match stayed scoreless.

RP coach Rocky Samson, using the only opportunity to contest a call or non-call, flashed the video replay card, putting the decision at the hands of technical officials watching the action on video.

Samson’s query was upheld and Rivero earned 3 points for the head shot.

That was all she needed to win the match, 3-1. The win set up Rivero against Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Duong who took a bye.

In other bouts, welterweight Marlon Avenido defeated Dam Srichan of Thailand, heavyweight Alexander Briones trounced Dinh Quang Toan of Vietnam and heavyweight Kirstie Elaine Alora mauled Lee Wan Yue of Malaysia.

The taekwondo finals were set in the afternoon.

A day after being barred from the cycling competition, the Philippines appealed an AIBA decision to scrap the pinweight division in boxing.

RP team manager Ed Picson made a passionate plea for the AIBA delegate to convince boxing’s world governing body to retain the division for the last time.

It now appears that the organizing committee was told of AIBA’s order to scrap the division as early as September, but was not relayed to member countries.