Cebu, Mandaue, Danao gear up for National Batang Pinoy hosting
It will be a busy week in Cebu City starting tomorrow as the Queen City of the South hosts the National Finals of the Batang Pinoy games.
Cebu City will be sharing hosting chores with the neighboring cities Mandaue and Danao. This means the 27 sporting events of the meet will be shared among the three cities with most of the games to be played in Cebu City.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Ricardo “Richie” Garcia, who was in Cebu for the National Sports Stakeholders Sports Forum at the Crown Regency Hotel, is confident the hosting will go smoothly.
“I instructed Cebu City to host this event two years ago and they decided to make it a Cebu-wide hosting that’s why Mandaue City and Danao City came in to co-host the meet,” Garcia said.
Winners in this meet will get incentives from the local government unit and also get a chance to be named into the national training pool of their respective sporting events.
The meet starts tomorrow at the Cebu City Sports Center. Expected to grace the opening is Garcia, men’s national volleyball team member Richard Gomez, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes and Danao City Mayor Ramon Durano III.
Sinulog Festival organizer Ricky Ballesteros was assigned to organize the opening ceremonies. According to him, there will be around 5,000 members of the city’s top dance troupes who will be performing tomorrow, in the hopes of putting up a good show.
Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) chairman Edward Hayco earlier said he wanted Cebu City’s hosting to be a memorable one for the athletes.
Around 5,000 will be taking part in this meet with Cebu City fielding in 1,000 delegates and the rest coming from Luzon, other parts of Visayas and Mindanao.
Most of the delegation from outside Cebu have arrived since Tuesday and are billeted in different public schools.
Most of those competing for Cebu are those who volunteered in CCSC’s grassroots development program while the others are those who competed in the Philippine National Games.
“It’s like a reward for those athletes and coaches who volunteered to help the youth in our grassroots development program. It’s a way of giving them thanks for helping CCSC in its program and also we gave chance for those who took part of the grass roots development program to expose their talents and skills they’ve learned in the program,” said Hayco.
Young runners from barangay Guba Elementary School, who were the beneficiaries of the grassroots development program of CCSC and headed by Cebuana marathon Queen Mary Joy Tabal and her coach, will be competing in the national meet.
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