Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Stricter measures put up vs. Palaro age cheating By Frank C. Calapre Sun.Star Correspondent
MANILA - In Its effort to get rid of age cheating, the Department of Education (DepEd), yesterday said it will implement strict requirements for the eligibility of the athletes seeing action in the 2007 Palarong Pambansa in Koronadal, South Coatabato this April.
Palaro Task Force head Len Toledo said the new guidelines already require the certification of the division superintendent, school principal, coach and class adviser in the athletes' personal identification papers.
He said that in the new guidelines, the superintendent, principal, coach and adviser will be held liable in any incident of cheating.
"They can be terminated or expelled from the service if found to have participation in the cheating," said Toledo.
Scandal
Toledo said the softball coach who was involved in the athletes’ age cheating scandal that tainted the success of the school multi-event meet last year in Naga City is suspended from participating in this year's edition to held on April 22 to 28.
"The DepEd has learned its lesson and we are doing our best to totally eliminate any cheating this time. We are imposing now very strict eligibility requirements," he said.
The DepEd will only accept beginning this year an original birth certificate issued by the National Census and Statistics Office (NCSO) and not just from the municipal civil registry, according to Toledo.
"In this way, we can avoid the submission of fake birth certificates. That's what our findings. It is more authentic if it comes from the NCSO," he said.
Additions
Toledo also said basketball has been added to the 14 sports disciplines in the elementary level, while arnis, a Philippine sport, is also now a regular event in the high school competition, for a total of 18 sports—14 in the elementary and 17 in the secondary division.
Other sports in the meet include swimming, athletics, baseball, softball, basketball, football, gymnastics, taekwondo, karatedo, sepak takraw, table tennis, lawn tennis, boxing, chess, dancesports, badminton, volleyball and archery.
The DepEd is setting aside some P32 million from the general appropriation act for the staging of the meet, while the city of Koronadal is also earmarking a sum of P40 million to ensure a successful hosting.
