Hold your marks for the Davao City SEA Games

THE PHILIPPINE Sport Commission’s point man for Mindanao is busy appraising the region’s lay of the land when it comes to sports infrastructure.

In essence, former Davao Sun Star sports editor Charles Maxey, a new PSC commissioner under Chair Butch Ramirez, is doing the spadework for a meeting between his boss and Philippine Olympic Committee President Jose Cojuangco Jr. after the Rio de Janeiro Olympics August 5 to 21.

The country’s top sports leaders, Ramirez and Cojuangco, who is joining the Philippine delegation in Rio, will sit down and discuss Davao City’s hosting of the Southeast Asian Games in 2019.

That accolade for President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown is not yet carved in stone and would depend on the availability of sports venues in the city and environs.

Originally offered to Brunei Darussalam, the hosting of the Games was intended for Manila which had done it thrice before in 1981, 1991 and 2005.

Often parodied as the most glorified regional barangay-level sports festival, the SEA Games offer no more than bragging rights to participating countries and are branded for performances consistently falling way below Asian Games standards.

But these do not matter to Maxey, the commissioner in charge of PSC business in Mindanao who believes that whether you like them or not, the SEA Games exist and would be popular in the region when it welcomes the first ever sports event of such magnitude to come to the country’s southern gateway.

Besides, the 11-nation conclave would spotlight the Davao area as a sports and general tourism destination and would enhance progress for the region as a whole.

Maxey and fellow PSC Commissioner Arnold Agustin, PSC officials Ronnel Abrenica and Aloma Quintos are currently in Davao this week, along with an engineer, Eduardo Clariza, and an architect, Noel Elnar, as part of a technical team looking at possible SEA Games venues in several locations, including neighboring Davao del Norte.

The team will also assess facilities in Metro Manila just in case Davao City falls short.

Among the facilities the team checked included the first phase of the Davao City Sports Complex under construction for P450 million on a 20-hectare site at the University of the Philippines Mindanao campus, another sports hub on a 10-hectare location inside the University of Mindanao and the 70,000-seat King Dome being built by the church of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy.

The Davao City Sports Complex in Mintal, Tugbok District is targeted for completion middle of next year. It was Duterte’s pet project as city mayor through the government funding efforts of former Davao Rep. Isidro T. Ungab. First phase of the project includes a stadium, auditorium, track and field oval and concrete roads leading to the site.

Part two being built to the tune of P200 million will include an Olympic-size swimming pool, another auditorium and other facilities.

“Seeing the sports complex rise is the…realization of a dream shared by every Davaoeño led by (President) Duterte himself,” says Maxey. “Mindanao has long been a neglected region and holding the biennial meet …three years from now will manifest that it is indeed a land of peace and harmony contrary to what people perceive it to be.”