CVIRAA 2024: Cebu City boasts modern hosting of games

The DepEd Cebu City’s operations headquarters for CVIRAA. | By Glendale Rosal

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City is setting the bar higher in terms of hosting the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association or CVIRAA 2024 through its modern approach of this week-long meet.

In an interview with CDN Digital, Adolf Aguilar, the Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu City games management services head and assistant schools division superintendent said they want to reach a wider audience through its real-time live streaming and updates on the ground.

Aguilar revealed that they’ve deployed more than 500 personnel from DepEd for the 24 CVIRAA 2024 sports events happening throughout Cebu City to provide uninterrupted live streaming and updates on the regional games.

What’s more remarkable to see is its main headquarters at the DepEd Cebu City office where the operations, media relations, and secretariat operate for the entire meet.

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Stepping inside the fourth level of the DepEd Cebu City office allows the visitors to see a very modern command center with dozens of LED screens, and laptop computers closely monitoring and live streaming the games on social media.

It’s a stark contrast to CVIRAA’s conventional pen-and-paper procedure that is a painstaking process in the past.

“We’re proud to say that this is the first time in the CVIRAA and Palaro history that we have this kind of coverage and monitoring. We want to expand, and elevate the brand of CVIRAA 2024 and Palaro to a wider audience,” said Aguilar.

Tournament directors and other personnel on the field feed the headquarters with real-time results subject to verification before it’s being published on its official website to ensure accuracy.

In addition to that, all of the 12,000 delegates who have IDs on them are required to scan before entering or exiting the billeting and game venues for security purposes.

All of those who are scanned will be logged into DepEd’s system to ensure the safety and security of everyone during the meet.

Large LED screens broadcast live streaming of the CVIRAA games. | By Glendale Rosal

The Cebu City Hall has its own command center as well where it manages the problems and concerns of the delegates as the host city of CVIRAA 2024.

He also mentioned that they want to encourage more youth to engage in sports through their modern approach

“We want to encourage mga future sports heroes to engage in sports. If we don’t make efforts to reach them out through our live streaming and real-time updates through social media platforms, it will be difficult,” added Aguilar.

“Unlike before we don’t have a live streaming of all the sports events. This time, we can even watch the awarding of the games. We also make sure that our awarding ceremony of each sports is at par with international standards like the SEA Games.”

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Aguilar said it’s a labor-intensive process in a bid to allow more people to watch and enjoy the CVIRAA 2024 games.

Aguilar revealed that they partnered with a major telecommunications brand to provide them fast and uninterrupted internet connection for their real-time updates and live streaming.

He noted that this kind of coverage is part of their preparation for the Palarong Pambansa this July in Cebu City.

CVIRAA officials monitor an awarding of one of the CVIRAA games. | By Glendale Rosal

“This is training for the Palarong Pambansa, bag-o man siya, naa pud challenges, but for Palaro it will be smoother because we already identified the gaps,” added Aguilar.

They are also set to meet with Meta Philippines to sort out their concerns including blocked live streamings.

“Meta was overwhelmed, sometimes they blocked us, but we are scheduled to meet with Meta to sort out the problems with our live streaming and updates. We want to reach millions on social media,” Aguilar concluded.