Get into sports, PSC tells youth

PICK up one or two sports as a start.

This is the advice of Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Commissioner and basketball legend Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez to young kids as the 2019 Batang Pinoy Visayas Qualifying Leg, a grassroots sporting meet, blasted off in Iloilo City on Sunday, Feb. 24.

“I encourage the young kids to pick up a sport or two, especially in their growing up years. Hopefully, by the time they reach 13 or 14 years old, they can then choose which sport they excel and compete in grassroots competitions like this,” Fernandez told Cebuano scribes.

Around 3,700 delegates from 71 local government units (LGUs) in the Visayas region are in Iloilo City for the 15-Under sporting meet.

“We can actually say that the Batang Pinoy Games are the very foundation of the grassroots program of the PSC in line with the Department of Education’s program, which is the Palarong Pambansa and the regional meets,” he said.

“Now that the government is really 100 percent supporting sports activities, as we say sports for all, our kids really have a lot to look up to as far as sports is concern,” said Fernandez.

The athletes are vying for 420 gold medals, 420 silver medals and 420 bronze medals from archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, chess, dancesport, karatedo, pencak silat, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, lawn tennis, volleyball and futsal.

The medal-rich swimming event has the most gold medals at stake with 70. Arnis has 68, taekwondo has 52, while both pencak silat and karatedo have 40 golds. Athletics has 36 golds.

The winners of the regional event will advance to the Batang Pinoy National Finals.

The LGUs from Cebu that sent delegations are Cebu City, Cebu Province, Consolacion, Danao City, Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City, Bogo City and San Fernando.

Cebu City has the biggest delegation from Cebu LGUs with 316 athletes, while Cebu Province has 297 athletes. Mandaue City sent 111 athletes, while the rest of the delegations have less than 50 participants.

Cebu City and Cebu Province are coming off a good stint in last year’s national finals in Baguio City as the two teams both landed in the Top 5.

“We want to have more qualifiers to the national finals,” CPSC executive director Ramil Abing told SunStar Cebu.

The official opening ceremony was held at the Iloilo Sports Complex. It was attended by PSC Chairman William Ramirez, Fernandez and Charles Maxey, Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. and Iloilo City Mayor Jose Espinosa III.

The competition for all 20 sports, except dancesports, will start on Monday, Feb. 25. (RSC)

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