| MagicMan13 | Date: Saturday, 2011-03-26, 4:05 AM | Message # 1 |
 Generalissimo
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| There is no question that the Palarong Pambansa, one of the country’s oldest existing sports programs, must go on. This is because the Palaro is the best medium for discovering young athletes with potentials to make good in international competitions.
Dapitan City in Zamboanga del Norte is this year’s host—the first major national sportsfest to be held in the place where Dr. Jose P. Rizalwas exiled. The province staged the Private Schools Athletic Association games (Prisaa) in Dipolog in 1982.
Featuring about 5,000 public elementary and high school athletes, this year’s Palaro will be held on May 8 to 14 at Dapitan’s Jose RizalMemorial State University, under the aegis of the Department of Education. Former Rep. Romeo Jalosjos is in charge of the competitions.
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The Palaro is needed in order to produce more De Vegas, Muroses, Del Prados, Torreses and Elordes. But due to conflicting opinions of sports officials in the past, the Palaro was once set aside.
There is a dire lack of an honest-to-goodness grassroots program due to lack of money to support it, said Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia.
“We committed P400 million for elite sports this year which is bigger than last year’s (P159 million), so the thing is we must strike a balance because we can’t come up with a decent grassroots development with less than P500 million.”
The bottom line is, there’s not enough logistical support for the grassroots program. So much funds have been spent to the training of these elite athletes to the detriment of the Palaro program.
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Besides the discovery of new athletes, a core of competent coaches is necessary to take care of these athletes nationwide. There is also a need to develop a group of honest and dedicated competition officials and organizers.
In my opinion, unless a broad-based sports development is immediately implemented, future Filipino athletes can never be competitive internationally.
Except for pound-for-pound boxing king Manny Pacquiao, billiards greats Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante and bowling legend Paeng Nepomuceno, the present crop of athletes donning Philippine colors in international competitions may be fading away and no replacements for them are in sight.
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How on earth could the Philippine Sports Commission give incentives to all retired athletes, including the differently abled, without the PSC increasing the monthly pension for former Olympians, Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games athletes?
As of now, retired athletes receive a monthly pension of P7,000, P5,000 and P3,000, depending on their achievements. But to many sports followers, these amounts are not enough to tide them over during these hard and difficult times.
A case in point is Anthony Villanueva, the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games silver medal winner, who, after suffering from a stroke which left him paralyzed, offered his medal for sale.
“Many people were shocked,” Villanueva said, “but what can I do? I can’t eat my medal.”
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