Limpag: PSC and the Children’s Games

WHEN he was in his final days in the Philippine Olympic Committee, one of the things Peping Cojuangco threw at the Philippine Sports Commission was the Children’s Games, calling it a waste of millions for something that basically promotes parlor games.

Whether it’s a waste of money or not, that’s going to be something we’re going to find out three or four years down the line, but I like this program of the PSC, even if, for some, it just involves kids playing parlor games, long-forgotten parlor games.

In the time of gadgets and social media, how often do you see kids playing? Our pool of athletes has not increased because the number of kids who are getting into sports has not increased. Most of the kids who are into sports these days are the sons and daughters of former athletes. Sure, kids get to have PE classes in school, but it’s really different when you get to play in a non-academic setup.

And this is how I see the Children’s Games; it gets the kids off their butts to try games and for our generation, playing parlor games was our introduction to basketball, football, and tennis. As expected, the kids who got into sports were the same kids in the streets playing tubig-tubig or what have you.

So, I’m going to wait two or three years before I’d say the Children’s Games are a waste of time and funds, because we will find out the result of this program down the road, whether there will be an increase in kids getting into sports.

You can say that the PSC should be taking care of our elite athletes only, but then again that’s quite a parochial view. Like I said in previous columns, our pool of athletes is less than 10,000; these are the kids who are in the Palaro, private school meets or the national championships of the sports associations. In sports, we are not a nation of 100 million; we are hardly a nation of a million.

People love to point out how come tiny nations like Singapore do better than us internationally. There are many reasons, and one of which is their pool of athletes is greater than ours.

And perhaps, the Children’s Games is one way to increase that number.

And if this is succesful, then perhaps then the PSC can take a backseat and let the LGUs (at least those with inactive sports commissions) take over. Make it a part of their local sports programs; make them do something aside from sponsoring basketball tournaments during elections.

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