Thursday, October 23, 2008 Sixth Bishop Cup draws 200 golfers By Roderick Osis
CAMP John Hay will host anew the sixth installment of the Bishop's Cup pitting about 200 golfers in Baguio and Benguet.
The sixth edition of the annual Bishop Cup will culminate six years of hard work, which saw the setting up of a church in Abatan, Buguias from scratch to be realized on November 8.
"Inauguration will be on December 13 as the final stage of funds will be released to finish the five-storey church, which also functions as a school," said Rudy Asiatico, member of the organizing committee.
Tee-off time will be from 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. with the mass anticipated to start at 4:30 p.m. Dinner will be at 7 p.m. where a raffle draw will be made and the awards ceremony for the 18-hole, par-72 Modified Stableford format golfest.
In his letter to sponsors, Baguio-Benguet diocese Bishop Carlito Cenzon said the Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish is more than 90-percent complete and funds raised from the annual tournament will be used for finishing the church.
Special awards will be most accurate, nearest the pin and most exercised, among others.
Cenzon assumed leadership of the diocese in 2002. A year later, he saw a church was needed in Abatan, Buguias, one of the more populous areas in Benguet that made him come up with the golf tournament to raise funds to finance the construction.
The bishop also utilized local labor to help in the put-up of the church which six years after will finally see its completion.
And like the missionaries did a 100 years ago, the church was slowly put up, bit by bit, which will also see hundreds of the locals' children enrolled in the school, summed Asiatico.
Organizers of the sixth Bishop Cup is hopeful the mission will not end in Buguias, as the bishop is planning to go to Bakun next year to start another project which will see a new parish, said banker Rolando de Guzman, a member of the organizing committee.
De Guzman said the bishop announced during a fund raising dinner early this month his next project will be in Bakun.
