Sports, if effectively programmed as a citizen initiative and sustainably supported by government, can channel youth energies away from drugs, guarantee the overall development of the youth and ensure their contribution to community development as part of their investment to their future. While sports is one of the neglected programs of government, it continues to be part of the everyday life of Filipinos that keep them aware of the developments in society no matter how serious the problems of the country are. Sports competitions in various parts of the country have greatly contributed in the development of certain areas but not in the case of the Cordillera where it never had a chance to host a mass-based sports competition similar to the magnitude of a Palarong Pambansa.
Baguio City and Benguet lost their first crack at attempting to host the staging of this year’s Palarong Pambansa, the biggest national sports event in the country, to erstwhile winner Vigan City, Ilocos Sur due difficulties in pooling public and private resources for both local governments to comply with the rigid bidding process conducted by the Palaro Selection Committee.
Further, Baguio City also lost its chance of hosting the prestigious Asian Grand Prix athletic competition after some of the playing venues, particularly the public sports facilities, failed to pass the prescribed international standards because of reported substandard works on the said facilities.
From September 15-21, 2018, Baguio and Benguet were given a break by the PSC to host the staging of the Batang Pinoy national finals which is the third largest sporting competition in the country sanctioned by the sports governing body. Both local governments, in coordination with the private sector, are now on the final stages of their preparations for the hosting of the week-long sports competition which will test the capability of both the city and the province to collectively manage a national sports competition. Based on initial estimates by the sports body, some 7,000 athletes, sports officials and chaperons from all over the country will be arriving in the city to participate in the 28 events lined up for the sports event in 22 sports disciplines to be played in the different sports venues around the city while 6 sports disciplines will be played in Benguet.
The PSC is closely supervising the on-going preparations for the week-long sports competition to make sure that the city’s hosting of the annual sports event will be better than the previous staging of similar sports tournaments around the country over the past several years. PSC officials who were in town over the past several weeks claimed that participation of local governments to the Batang Pinoy national finals had significantly increased compared to the number of participating local governments during the previous administration which illustrates the support shown by the present administration to the promotion of grassroots sports in the country.
For several years, Baguio tried to fastrack the put up of the rubberized track oval of the Baguio Athletic Bowl in time for the previous regional sports competitions. However, PSC technical personnel discovered major defects in the track oval that failed the city’s bid to host the Asian Athletic Grand Prix. For the Batang Pinoy national finals, several technical adjustments had been made to ensure the safety of performers. Participants of the sports events are youth aged 15 and below pursuant to the government’s grassroots sports program. On the other hand, the remaining public and private playing venues seem to have passed the technical requirements of the PSC although there are still minor adjustments to be done in time for the competition dates to fully ready the venues and welcome the thousands of athletes, sports officials, chaperons and the viewing public who will be visiting the city for the competition.
We believe that Baguio and Benguet have to make good their performance in hosting this prestigious sports competition which will gauge their capability to host much bigger competitions in the future. We must show our all-out support to both local governments to guarantee the successful staging of the event that was given to Baguio and Benguet obviously in a silver platter. We must show to the organizers that we deserve to host even much bigger sports competitions, not only because our weather is conducive for high altitude tournaments apart from our scenic sceneries, we have the institutional and infrastructure capability to do so. Let us individually and collectively contribute to the success of the sports competition as our contribution to national youth development. Let us set aside our differences to start working together and how we are one of those local governments which deserve hosting such magnitude of sports competitions.
