Team Cebu City Niños finished second overall in the Batang Pinoy Visayas Regional Championships held last March 2019 in Iloilo City. CDND PHOTO / Mars G. Alison
CEBU CITY, Philippines—About 200 members of the 330-strong Cebu City delegation to the Batang Pinoy National Championships will be leaving for Puerto Princesa, Palawan via Manila on board a ship on Thursday, August 22, 2019.
This was confirmed by Amilo Lopez, executive director of the Cebu City Sports Commission, who is already in Puerto Princesa as part of a four-man advance party to make sure that the billeting area for the Cebu City delegation is prepared when the delegation arrives.
Lopez said Team Cebu City Niños will be billeted at the San Pedro Central School in Barangay San Pedro.
“We checked the sleeping area of our athletes, the lightings and the water. So far, everything is okay here,” said Lopez, who added that the billeting area is very accessible as it is located along the road.
The Cebu City delegation is expected to arrive on August 24 after a two-day travel while the rest of the Niños will be taking the plane on August 24 in time for the opening ceremonies on August 25.
Lopez explained that some of the delegates had to take the boat because most of the flights to Puerto Princesa were already booked.
The Batang Pinoy is a weeklong multi-sporting competition for the Under 15 athletes.
It is one of the talent identification programs of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).
It is Local Government Unit (LGU)-based which means the athletes will not be representing their schools but their respective LGUs.
The National Championships will gather the top three winners in the various regional finals held all over the country.
Cebu finished second overall in last year’s national finals held in Baguio City with a medal haul of 36 gold medals, 40 silvers and 44 bronze medals.
The overall title went to host Baguio City with a medal tally of 83-81-107 while completing the top 3 was Laguna Province with a medal count of 34-13-31. The Cebu Province was at sixth place with a medal tally of 23-8-20.
In this year’s Visayas Regional Finals, Cebu City (42-55-63) lost the overall title to host Iloilo City (57-49-44) with Cebu Province (38-38-52) settling for third.
The Niños will be competing in archery, arnis, athletics, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, chess, dancesport, karatedo, tennis, pencak silat, and softball.
The young athletes will also compete in swimming, taekwondo, volleyball, gymnastics, weightlifting, wushu, billiard, rugby, wrestling, cycling, triathlon, duathlon and muay thai.
Other events to be contested are badminton, baseball, futsal, judo, sepak takraw and table tennis.
A sendoff mass was held for the Team Cebu City Niños on Wednesday afternoon, August 21, at the Cebu City Sports Center. / celr