BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan urged sports officials, coaches and athletes representing Baguio city in different local, regional, national and international sports competitions to make do with earmarked funds from the local government purposely as financial assistance for them to be able to join such sports tournaments in the different parts of the world.
The local chief executive made the appeal to the concerned sports officials, coaches and athletes during the ceremonial turnover of additional cash incentives for those that represented the city in the 2018 Philippine National Games (PNG) in Cebu City last May.
“The local government has limited funds to defray the expenses of the city’s delegation to different sports competitions that is why let us make do with what is available for us to be able to participate in the upcoming sports competitions to be done in the different parts of the world,” Domogan stressed.
He added that the City Spots Development Committee in close coordination with the City Sports Office is doing its best to look for available ways and means to support the participation of sports officials, coaches and athletes in various sports competitions to further improve the skills of existing athletes to help them bring honor and pride to the city.
He claimed that the PNG coaches and athletes were lucky because President Rodrigo Duterte attended the national sports competition and announced the substantial increase in the cash prizes of the winners of the competition.
Baguio City placed second to overall champion Cebu in the PNG where it was able to receive P8 million in monetary incentives, P4 million from the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and P4 million from the Office of the President.
Domogan announced that bulk of the cash prize given to the Baguio City delegation will be used by the local government to procure additional sports equipment which will be used by the coaches and athletes in their trainings in preparation for other upcoming sports competitions.
He also announced that coaches and athletes who represented Baguio City to the batang Pinoy national championships will be receiving their additional cash incentives once the PSC will turnover to the local government the P3 million cash prize for winning the overall crown in the said competition.
However, he said that Batang Pinoy coaches and athletes will not be as lucky as those who joined the PNG because the President was not able to arrive in the city to grace the opening ceremonies due to the wrath of Supertyphoon Ompong but part of the cash prize will also be shared by the participating coaches and athletes.
PSC Chairman William Ramirez promoted to personally deliver to Mayor Domogan the check representing the cash prize of Baguio city for winning the overall championship in the 2019 Batang Pinoy national championships that was hled in various sports venues in Baguio and La Trinidad, Benguet. Benguet co-hosted the 2019 Batang Pinoy championships where some of the games were held in different sports venues In the capital town.
By Dexter A. See
