From left, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) commissioner Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez, Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella and new chairman of Cebu City Sports Commission, Lorenzo “Chao” Sy. | Contributed Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines —Lorenzo “Chao” Sy will be the new chairman of the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC).
Sy confirmed this development after meeting with Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella on Monday, July 15, 2019.
“We went to a meeting with Mayor Edgardo Labella today and he verbally appointed me as the new chairman. He said that my appointment papers are to follow because we have to focus on preparing to sending athletes to the Batang Pinoy,” said Sy in an interview with Cebu Daily News Digital.
Sy will be replacing Edward Hayco, who has held the position for nine years.
According to Sy, he has named three sports personalities to be commissioners—Jessica Jawad Honoridez, Dr. Roel Dejano and Gerald Cañete.
Sy also offered a commissioner position to ALA Boxing’s Antonio Aldeguer but the latter declined.
The rest of the commissioners, Sy said, have yet to be evaluated and finalized by Mayor Labella.
Sy will have a lot on his hands as all the staff at the CCSC office have been replaced with 29 newbies from the mountain barangays. Sitting as his executive director is Amay Lopez.
Sy is no stranger to the CCSC, having served as one of the commissioners during Mike Rama’s term as mayor from 2010 to 2013.
Sy is a former basketball player of the University of San Carlos and also dabbled in boxing.
Sy’s appointment should be good for the CCSC since he is also the PSC Visayas coordinator and the head of boxing Visayas. This means he could align PSC’s programs for the Visayas with the programs of CCSC.
He assured that just because he heads Visayas boxing, doesn’t mean he will focus on boxing alone.
“What I want is to involve all sports, all Olympic sports, that is my initiative,” said Sy.
Sy further added that he would focus on 20 individual sports such as swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, athletics, among others.
In line with this, he will facilitate the building of a three-floor training center within the Cebu City Sports Center grounds to provide an area for athletes to train. The budget for this training center will be taken from the P50 million which will be coming from the PSC.
He also plans to hold a monthly competition with different sports to be contested every month with the culmination to be held in December.
Sy added he will not prioritize team sports yet since Cebu is pretty good in that field. But he will be talking to Mayor Labella to provide them with an area at the South Road Properties (SRP) to be used as training ground for baseball, softball and football.
Sy assured that he will continue all the programs that was started by Hayco but will give equal attention to all 20 sports that they will be identifying. /bmjo