SEA Games coverage on AKTV

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino athletes will be cheered by sports officials from the Philippine Olympic Committee, the national sports associations and the Philippine Sports Commission, their fellow athletes and members of the Filipino community in Jakarta, Palembang and Java, main venues of the 26th Southeast Asian Games.

Leading this patriotic effort is a group of cheerdance champions from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Centro Escolar University and the University of the Philippines.

The cheer leaders introduced the new Philippine cheer:

Go-Team Philippines...Go-Fight-Win...Blue-and-Red... 3 Stars...One Sun...P-I-L-I-P-I-N-A-S (3 times)...PILIPINAS LABAN!

The cheers are accentuated with the raising of arms interspersed with the beating of drums and the waiving of the national flag.

* * *

AKTV, an IBC 13 special program totally dedicated to sports, most specially the PBA games, has sent a 17-man crew to cover events in all venues.

Filipinos who wish to watch the action will have the chance practically throughout the day because AKTV is basically a sports channel, whose programs are produced by Ch 5 and broadcast on 13.

AKTV has on schedule a complete coverage, aired on a slightly delayed basis, of such sports as basketball, football, boxing and swimming from an arrangement with the Indonesian hosts.

Although Indonesia has waived TV rights, Ch 5 is not making a full coverage but will instead be relying largely on what the host TV crews will provide. This explains the lean TV team assigned to the SEA Games.

On Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays AKTV will provide highlights of the SEA Games during the quarter and halftime breaks of PBA games and possibly do subliminal and casual mentions of the events during the PBA games.

ABS-CBN is also sending a 19-man team and is presenting practically the same format as its rival station although on a limited time slot.

Filipinos will thus have chance to watch the whole or part of the SEA Games through AKTV or any of the carrying stations (Ch. 23) of ABS-CBN.

While AKTV will be practically the whole day, ABS-CBN will be airing the SEA Games events from 8:30-10:30 a.m., 2-6 p.m., and 9:30-11 p.m. The time slots will be adjusted if needed, the channel said.

* * *

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest country composed of 18,603 islands.

 It was the longest reigning overall champion of the SEA Games (nine) ever since it joined along with the Philippines, in 1977.

 However, the financial crisis of 1998 and a political upheaval that led to the ouster of Suharto in the same year also paid its toll on the sports program of Indonesia, which ceded the overall championship to Thailand in 1985 and 1995, regained it as host in 1997 and lost it to Thailand in 1999 until the present. Thailand was also overall champ in 1999, 2007 and 2009. Outside the two, the others who took the overall championship were Malaysia as host in 2001, Vietnam as host in 2003 and the Philippines as host in 2005.

 Indonesia hopes to regain lost glory this year as host and with a robust oil-based economy that is putting its sports program back on the road, it hopes to win at least 150 of the 545 gold medals at stake.

Indonesia was once ruled not by a foreign sovereignty but by a company - Dutch East India Company – at one time the world’s biggest company with 200 ships plying the Asia-Europe routes and an army of over 10,000.