Palaro under way in Dumaguete City

MANILA, Philippines - Over 12,000 athletes, coaches, delegation officials and their families converge in the coastal city of Dumaguete to battle for pride and glory in the Palarong Pambansa, which comes off the wraps today at the Gov. Mariano Perdices Memorial Stadium.

With the theme “Sports: Road to Peace and Progress,” this year’s edition will introduce wushu for secondary boys and girls, billiards for secondary boys and futsal for elementary girls as demonstration sports as part of the Department of Education’s thrust of discovering more talents in these disciplines where Filipinos have already excelled in international competitions.

A grand parade from the Silliman University campus to the main stadium by all 17 participating regions will usher in the weeklong meet with DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro, FSC, declaring the games open.

President Aquino will not be attending the opener the way he did in last year’s staging in Lingayen, Pangasinan as he had already come to the city just a few days back for the Liberal Party sortie attended by local and national election candidates.

“No, the President will not be attending, he just came here a couple of days back for the Liberal Party sortie,” Maggie Collado, DepEd’s media relations officer, yesterday told The STAR.

Some sports, mostly ball games, are scheduled to be played today while the majority of the events in the Palaro calendar including centerpiece athletics are set tomorrow when action goes full blast.

Wushu has been a rich source of gold medals not just in the Olympic Games where it is still an exhibition sport but also in the Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games. 

The sport has also produced champions in professional mixed martial arts like ONE Fighting Championship and the Pacific X-Treme Cagefighting. Some of them are Honorio Banario, Crisanto Pitpitunge, Eduard Folayang and Kevin Bellingon.

In billiards, the country has a collection of world beaters like Efren “Bata” Reyes, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan, Ronnie Alcano and Dennis Orcollo while futsal, a small version of football, has gone extremely popular with the emergence of the Azkals.

The other regular sports in the fold are archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, chess, football, gymnastics, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and tennis.

The National Capital Region is expected to field a strong delegation hoping to successfully defend the crown it won in both the elementary and secondary divisions. Traditional challengers Western Visayas and Calabarzon are expected to give the Big City bets a run for their money.

DepEd’s Tonisito Umali, Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo and Dumaguete Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria are joining Luistro in the elaborate opening rites, which will also be highlighted with the lighting of the cauldron by two-time Olympians – jumper Marestella Torres and archer Mark Javier.

This early, the generous hosts had provided all 17 participating regions with food supplies that include 15 sacks of rice, 100 kilos of meat products, 100 kilos of sugar, 100 kilos of fish, 100 kilos of chicken, two sacks of sugar, 10 sacks of Milo, unlimited supply of mineral water and free transportation.