Palarong Pambansa 2024: CV athletes’ performance, hosting lauded

By: Glendale G. Rosal - 5 months ago

Palarong Pambansa 2024: DepEd-7 chief on athlete’s performance, hosting

Athletes compete in the hurdles event of the Palarong Pambansa. | Photo from Sugbuanong Kodaker

CEBU CITY, Philippines— The Department of Education Region 7 (DepEd-7) Director Salustiano Jimenez is delighted on how the host delegation, Central Visayas athletes and squads perform as the Palarong Pambansa 2024 reached its penultimate day of the meet.

Currently, Central Visayas is ranked fourth in the medal standings as of Sunday, July 14. It has 19 gold medals, 28 silvers, and bronzes.

It’s a huge improvement from its fifth place in last year’s Palarong Pambansa in Marikina City where it won 26-18-35 (gold-silver-bronze) tally.

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“Kung atong silver mahimo pa tong gold, daog na gyud ta. Pero ang pinakaimportante nakita nato ang mga bata nga nalipay sila, win or lose lipay nako nga they are enjoying it,” Jimenez told CDN Digital.

(If our silver medals could have been gold medals, then we could surely have been the winner. But what is the most important is that we see the children happy, win or lose, I am happy that they are enjoying it.)

Jimenez also serves as the delegation head for Central Visayas in the Palarong Pambansa.

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According to Jimenez, the host delegation still has many athletes and teams who reached the quarterfinals and medal rounds as of this writing. Thus, he is confident that they can deliver the much-needed medals to climb up in the medal rankings as the meet wraps up tomorrow, Monday, July 15.

“Naa pa ta daghan sports nagcompete pa, atong basketball, football, but anyway, we can still compete, pray hard and God will surely grant our request,” added Jimenez.

(We still have many sports events that we are still competing, our basketball, football, but anyway, we can still compete, pray hard and God will surely grant our requests.)

“The ball is round, prayer, ang prayer lang gyud. Magtinabangay lang gyud ta. I’m sure we can do it,” he said.

(The ball is round, prayer, we’ll just do prayers. Let us just help each other. I’m sure that we can do it.)

Jimenez also noted the contribution of the Negrense athletes to Central Visayas’ gold medals. On Saturday, archer Naina Tagle of Dumaguete City bagged three gold medals in the archery event, while one more gilt came from its trackster.

He said that he did not know when the separation of the Negros Island Region or Negros Oriental from Central Visayas would take effect.

“I cannot tell, but eventually we will be missing them that they’re no longer part of Central Visayas,” said Jimenez.

Excellent hosting

Besides the competition, Jimenez pointed out the excellent hosting of Cebu in Palarong Pambansa from the billeting and playing venues.

Jimenez congratulated the organizers for putting up top-notch venues since the majority of it are held indoors including some sports events which are supposedly held commonly outdoors.

“As to the hosting, so far I am so satisfied. I heard from regional directors’ feedbacks, they are happy on how we manage the playing venues which are almost all indoors. First time in history of Palarong Pambansa,” Jimenez said.