THE Philippine Sports Commission is dedicating November and December to the staging of the Children’s Games, which was believed to be the first step towards discovering new talents from the grassroots level.
This is a pet project of Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez since his first term as the top executive of PSC in 2008, the Children’s Game was first staged in Davao City last May and Marawi and Baguio City last July.
Because of this program, PSC was given due recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (Unesco), where commissioner Ramon Fernandez was made to discuss the event in a summit held in Kazan, Russia last July in front of the International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport delegates from around the globe.
In Cebu, the two-day weekend event was staged in the mountain barangays in Cebu City. Next week, it will be held at the Cebu City Sports Center where more than 2,000 children from the 80 barangays, Muslim community and street children, aged 9-12 years old, will be given two days of playing regular sports and Filipino indigenous games and parlor games.
PSC Visayas coordinators, led by Nonie Lopez, held the first children’s games in Guba, Sudlon, Buhisan and Adlaon where 1,000 children between 9 and 12 years old were made to play regular ball games as well as parlor games.
“We included parlor games because we wanted to reconnect the children to cultural education. We made them experience what we have experienced when we were kids. While the sports side will expose them to early identification as to what sport path they have to follow in the future,” said Lopez.
The sports events that the children will be playing include basketball, volleyball, swimming, athletics, gymnastics, archery, judo, air rifle shooting, boxing, karatedo, arnis, badminton, table tennis and weightlifting. Dancesports will be also introduced to the kids.
This weekend the children’s games will be brought to Carcar City, Naga City on Nov. 25 and 26, Talisay City on Dec. 9 and 10 and Danao City in Dec. 16 and 17.
They will be also be held in Dumaguete, Mandaue, Ormoc, Iloilo, Bago City, Aklan, Boracay and Guimaras next year. (RCM)