MANILA, Philippines - PSC chairman Butch Ramirez said yesterday he prefers to stay at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex but if the City of Manila offers the right price, moving out to realize the dream of building a National Training Center for elite Filipino athletes would be worth the sacrifice.
Ramirez said he’s set a personal deadline of Jan. 30 to decide whether or not to leave Rizal which was inaugurated in 1934 and has undergone five costly renovations from when it was badly damaged during World War II. The City of Manila is expected to submit an offer to the PSC on Monday.
“Deep in my heart, I’d like to stay,” said Ramirez. “Under the law, it is the City of Manila that owns the property but the PSC has the right of usage. If the PSC decides to stay, the City of Manila can’t move us out. So it’s the PSC’s choice to stay or leave.”
Ramirez said the PSC has no involvement in the negotiations of the City of Manila with a third party reportedly bidding to buy the 11-hectare Rizal Memorial for the purpose of constructing a mall. “That’s not our business,” said Ramirez. “Our mandate is to take the lead in coordinating all amateur sports, undertake a grassroots development program and assist our elite athletes to perform at a high level. If the City of Manila wants the PSC to leave Rizal, we’ll wait for the offer.”
Ramirez said he has reviewed the latest market and zonal valuations of the Rizal property to establish a benchmark in comparing the City of Manila’s offer. “We have an idea of how much is the right price,” said Ramirez. “Depending on which valuation to consider, I think the right price would be anywhere between P6 to 10 Billion. We should remember that the PSC doesn’t own land. ULTRA is owned by the Department of Education. We don’t own the shooting range in Muntinlupa. We don’t own Rizal. We don’t own La Mesa Dam where our rowers practice. Nothing is owned by the PSC. It would be a dream come true for Filipino elite athletes if we could own a National Training Center to focus on their development.”
Ramirez said if the PSC moves out of Rizal, he will insist to preserve the facade. “We have to respect heritage,” he said. “Rizal was the venue for a lot of sports memories. That was the main venue when the Philippines hosted the 1954 Asian Games and the Southeast Asian Games in 1981, 1991 and 2005. We value the importance of preserving historical monuments such as Rizal. If we leave, the City of Manila should require the eventual user of the property to retain important landmarks to remind our people of the glory days of Rizal.”
Rizal Memorial was where baseball legends Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth cracked homeruns in an All-Star exhibition game in 1934, where tennis great and former world No. 1 Bill Tilden played in 1936 and where world middleweight boxing champion Ceferino Garcia halted Glen Lee in the 13th round to keep his belt in 1939. It was also where Tirso del Rosario lost a 15-round decision to Manuel Ortiz in a world bantamweight championship fight in 1947, where Flash Elorde was stopped by Carlos Ortiz in a bid for the world lightweight title in 1964 and where Rolando Navarrete survived a fifth round knockdown to halt Korea’s Chung Il Choi in the 11th to retain his WBC superfeatherweight crown in 1982.
Leaving Rizal will dislocate athletes, admitted Ramirez, but if the City of Manila pays the right price, the PSC could use the funds to push through with the plan of building a National Training Center at the Green City which straddles Capas, Tarlac and Angeles City, Pampanga. Ramirez credited POC president Jose Cojuangco, Jr. and former PSC chairman Richie Garcia for spearheading the push to establish a National Training Center.
“The entire Green City development covers 9,000 hectares,” said Ramirez. “Right now, it’s still raw land but a master plan has been designed by Aecom which also did work at the London and Rio Olympics. UP and FEU are participating in the development so there will be an educational component. The master plan sets aside 50 hectares for the National Training Center with 50 more just in case there is a need to build complementary structures. The Center will provide our elite athletes with the proper program to grow. It will offer complete facilities, not just equipment but also applications for sports science. Our goal is to take care of our athletes. If we want them to perform at a high level and produce results, we must give them the support and facilities to excel.”
Aecom is a Los Angeles-based company that is regarded as the world’s No. 1 engineering design firm with a presence in over 150 countries in seven continents and $17.4 Billion in revenues. It has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore with a work force of over 95,000 employees. Aecom was involved in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the 2010 FIFA World Cup as a designer, planner and consultant. The multi-national firm also designed and constructed the 43,000-seat Spartak Stadium in Moscow for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.