BONTOC, Mountain Province – The Provincial Government of Mountain Province allotted an amount of 3.5 million pesos for the upcoming Cordillera Administrative Region Athletic Association (CARAA) on February 7-12, 2015 to be held in Baguio City. This amount, plus a DepEd share of 362,000.00 and municipal shares of 400,000.00, the budget of the Provincial delegates for this year’s regional annual event total to P4, 262,000.00.
According to Provincial Sports Development Officer, Arnaldo Petten, the amount of 1.14M is being used for the training of athletes. Petten said that the training for this year will be done per event and that the training period will be longer as agreed during the meeting of coaches, trainers and all persons involved.
The increase in number of training days is one way of ensuring that our athletes are well-prepared for the sports that they will be competing. Meanwhile, DepEd sports officials have also assured that we are prepared on the officially included sports events namely billiards, wushu, wrestling and footsal.
As agreed during a Provincial School Board meeting, the training of athletes started on January 17 and will end on January 30, 2015 with training venues in Bontoc for most of the events. Other venues of training will be done in Guinzadan, Bauko for athletics, Sagada for baseball, Besao for softball, Natonin for volleyball – elementary, Tadian for gymnastics and Tabuk City for swimming.
Petten said that the reason why our swimming delegates will be conducting the training in Tabuk City is that they have a standard swimming pool in the place measuring 25 meters width and 50 meters length. Also, there are only two teams training in the area giving our delegates more time to prepare.
Chunk of the athletic meet budget will also go to uniforms, meals and snacks, vitamins and medicines, transportation and fare, insurance and contingency expenditures of the delegates.
In relation to this, Governor Leonard Mayaen believes that with these preparations by the DepEd as the implementing office in partnership with the Provincial Government and the Local Government Units, the performance of the athletes will further improve. The governor also hopes that the province’s performance will improve while our ranking will level-up from its third place standing last year.
Mayaen elaborated that the conduct of the regional sport competition is a DepEd event and that the Provincial Government and other stakeholders are there to extend ready assistance.
He added that providing financial as well as human resources and conducting refresher course trainings for the coaches and trainers are but some of the assistance that can be given by the provincial government.
It is hoped that these interventions will help develop our athletes and motivate them to compete at their best.
