Frustrated over DepEd Sports; An Answer (Finally?)
Every November is that time of the year when my frustration in sports reaches a relatively high level. And it’s been this way for over a decade now. Why? Every time the Department of Education’s Division meets are held, I’m happy and impressed, but also frustrated. This past week has seen the staging of the Cebu City Olympics and the Mandaue City Division Athletic Association Meet. Both ended yesterday, with the winners qualifying for the next level, the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA). And just like every year that has passed, we have seen how the DepEd’s two-sided personality surfaces when it comes to sports.
On one side, the DepEd is excellent in the drafting of guidelines, memos, and directives for the over-all staging of the step-ladder series of games or competitions that start at the unit or district levels, moves up to the division meets, levels up at the regionals and peaks at the final stop: the Palarong Pambansa. This is a textbook set-up of how to stage games from the lowest to the highest level. Memos, directives, documentation and correspondence for all this is complete and are even available online. But the other side of the DepEd is what puzzles me. While the blue print for all these competitions is almost perfect, there is no program for the athletes who participate in these competitions.
The DepEd doesn’t have a comprehensive sports program that seeks to discover talents among its students, implement a training regimen, and get them battle ready for competitions. So why stage competitions if the DepEd doesn’t have a sports program? Who is supposed to handle these sports programs? It’s clearer in the private schools where they invest in resources to establish sports programs. The basics of such programs are simple. Set up sports facilities. Form sports teams. Practice. Compete. Practice again. Compete again. This is one reason why the private schools excel in sports competitions over those from the public schools. The sports teams of the private schools train all year round and compete in several competitions outside of the DepEd network of competitions. On the other hand, the athletes of public schools train only for the DepEd competitions (if they train at all) and stop training when these competitions are done. There are exceptions to the rule but these only a handful: Abellana National School’s program and the girls volleyball team of Catmon. The Cebu Provincial Sports Commission has also embarked on a grassroots program. There are many times in division meets when I notice athletes who clearly didn’t have a chance to train properly and for who I pray that nothing serious happens. These are the situations where they go all out in a competition but aren’t fit or trained adequately. The irony of it all is that there are a lot of hidden gems out there in the public school network, and they’re just waiting to be discovered and honed.
And so for the nth time, I push. The DepEd sports program should not be limited to just the unit/district, division meets, CVIRAA and the Palaro. Let’s have the athletes train all year-round and not just for these short-term competitions. But the DepEd will say that they don’t have coaches nor the resources to establish a sports program. The key here is to tap the support of the local government units and the private sector of the local school’s community. I don’t know of public schools that have the all-out support of their administrators, wide resources to tap a coach or trainers, buy equipment and uniforms; and allocate time for practice and competitions. Thus, the need for outside help.
But there may be some good news (finally?). At a recent strategic planning workshop held earlier in November, the Philippine Sports Commission and DepEd agreed to set up a “sports development plan to jumpstart their collaboration in strengthening the country’s grassroots sports program.” The report goes on to say that “the plan centered on grassroots sports, governance and leadership of the agencies, human resource capacity-building, infrastructure and facilities, collaboration and linkages locally and internationally, and research and development.”
Is this the answer to our lack of a sports program in DepEd-managed schools? I sure hope so. If the PSC can provide the resources to help tap and train the talents in our public school network, that would be great. I haven’t seen the details of this partnership, but if my guess is right, this will involve helping the DepEd schools in running sports programs, including training of coaches, setting up of sports teams in public schools and running a program for these teams. These teams/programs will recruit, train then play not only in DepEd events but other events as well. Equipment and other basic needs will be provided while facilities will get an upgrade. The various national sports associations and local government units will also be tapped to make it a total approach to uplifting Pinoy sports over-all.
As the year comes close to end and another year appears, it is my dear wish that my November frustrations will finally disappear in 2019. Please make it happen.
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