IN A bid to lessen plastic wastes during the weeklong Cordillera Administrative Region Athletic Association (Caraa), the Baguio City Government is mulling to implement a plastic-free sports meet.

With Baguio City hosting the largest sports meet in the region, city sports coordinator Gaudencio Gonzales said athletes will receive a drinking tumbler they can utilize during Caraa and lessen the use of plastic bottles.

“We will be allocating budget for the tumbler. This will be given to athletes only,” said Gonzales.

The city is set to defend once again the overall title in regional meet that will commence February 16 – 21 where close to 5,000 student athletes coming from Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mountain Province, and Tabuk City will compete in more than 20 sports discipline.

Baguio City accounted for half of the gold medals at stake during the 2019 meet bagging 205 with host Apayao surprising the field for a second place finish with 69 gold medals while Abra landed third after amassing 39 golds.

The summer capital has allocated P8.3 million this year’s Caraa 2020 hosting based on the updated budget proposal from the Department of Education – Division of City Schools.

Earlier, the education department proposed some P15.5 million funding for the weeklong regional sports meet.

However, city officials urged the education department to take a second look and review the items which can be reduced and some items were eventually scrapped from the original proposed Caraa budget.

The education department was required by the City Council to turnover to the City General Services Office the units of portable sound system, sports equipment, among others, that will be purchased for Caraa hosting for safekeeping and for future use of the city.

The city government spent more than P12 million when the city hosted the Caraa in 2017 before the regional sports competition was hosted by Abra in 2018 and Apayao in 2019.