Big sporting events will be LGU-based next year
Two of the country’s biggest sporting meets, the Batang Pinoy and the Philippine National Games (PNG) will become LGU-based events starting next year, according to Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Ricardo “Richie” Garcia during yesterday’s start of the two-day National Sports Stakeholders Forum at the Crown Regency Hotel.
Garcia also encouraged the country’s sports stakeholders to support PSC’s plan of creating the National Sports Council (NSC) as a temporary substitute to the proposed Department of Sports which is still being amended in the Senate and Congress (see separate story on page 24).
The sports forum drew around 200 delegates from different cities, municipalities and sporting groups in the country.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Ricardo Garcia stresses a point during the National Stakeholders Forum at the Crown Regency Hotel. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
“There will be big changes. First, we will scrap the old system of Batang Pinoy where athletes and teams represent their schools and clubs. Instead, they will now represent their municipality, city or province,” Garcia said. “This will be an LGU-based qualifying meet because we will be utilizing the resources of the LGUs so that they can come up with their own qualifiers,” added Garcia.
In fact, Garcia and the forum participants has started mapping out the guidelines for this proposal.
The transition of the Batang Pinoy and PNG from meets funded by clubs, groups and schools to LGU-funded activities has the backing of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Education (DepEd).
This scheme will result in a municipality, provincial and city qualifying tournaments. This will be followed by the regional meet and the national finals.
Unlike the Palarong Pambansa where teams and athletes compete under their respective regions, the PNG and BP will only have four groups in the national finals: Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and the National Capital Region (NCR) like the National Milo Little Olympics.
This, according to Garcia, will give small towns the chance to expose their athletes in major meets.
“In this way, the athletes and teams can formally represent their own city, town or province in the regional finals and in the national finals,” he added.
The BP and PNG provincial, city and municipality meets are tentatively scheduled from January to February next year while the regional finals will be on April. The national finals is November.
Meanwhile, today’s forum highlight will be the signing of the manifesto for the issuance of an executive order by the President of the Philippines to push for the establishment of the NSC and the adoption of the new PNG and Batang Pinoy scheme to be led by Garcia, representatives from the POC, DILG and DepEd.
Also yesterday, Garcia acknowledged the undeniable importance of the LGUs and partners in academe in the successful attainment of a sustainable national sports for all program.