THOUGH he is holding one of the biggest basketball tournaments in Cebu with a champion’s purse of P200,000, Moalboal Mayor Inocentes Cabaron said he is not staging the event for prestige but for the enjoyment of the basketball-crazy town.
The 2nd Mayor Inocentes Cabaron Inter-town basketball tournament, which has attracted 12 teams, has a total purse of P500,000, with P200,000 going to the champion and P150,000 to the losing finalist. The third placer gets P100,000, while the fourth placer gets P50,000. In contrast, the champion of the Sinulog Cup, which had ex-PBA players participating, only got P150,000.
“Basketball is really big in our town, even our inter-barangay tournaments attract a huge crowd. We are doing this so they can enjoy a great competition,” Cabaron said in a roundtable discussion with media.
This year’s tournament has Dumanjug, Argao, Aloguinsan, Sibonga, Badian, and Boljoon in Group A and Dalaguete, Samboan, Alcantara, Barili, Ronda, and San Fernando in Group B.
Each group will play a single round robin with the top two advancing to the crossover semifinals, when they will be allowed to add an import to spice things up.
Cabaron held an inter-school event last year and decided to hold an inter-town event for this year’s fiesta because of the clamor of the town.
“I think this is what they want. I used to hold inter-town tournaments before the pandemic and they always attracted a huge crowd,” said Cabaron, who was joined by councilors Dodong Sabac and Susan Billones during the roundtable discussion.
And the crowd who saw the opening matches was indeed treated to quite a show, with Badian surviving a gritty Ronda, 77-70, and Samboan coming from behind to beat Alcantara, 98-95.
Aside from the basketball tournament, Cabaron is also staging an invitational men’s and women’s volleyball tournament with Dumanjug, Alcantara, Ronda, Moalboal, Badian, Alegria, Malabuyoc, and Barili as participants.
“It has been a long time since we got to play in front of our home crowd and we are very thankful for Mayor Cabaron for giving us this chance. We can’t promise but we will try our best to win the title for our fellow Moalboalanons,” said playing coach Dave Cabaron, who once played for the men’s national team in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games.
The host is off to a great start in volleyball, with the women’s team beating Alcantara, 25-0, 25-20, and the men’s squad also dispatching Alcantara, 25-12, 20-25, 25-23.
The twin tournaments aren’t the only sports program of the town as last year, Mayor Cabaron instituted a massive grassroots program for basketball, volleyball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, chess, and sepak takraw, giving almost 1,000 kids a chance at a
free training.
“We want to give our kids a chance to get into sports, so we provided them with free training every weekend,” said Mayor Cabaron, who is himself a sportsman and plays tennis every weekend. / ML