INQUIRER Sports

MANILA -- With “avid chess player” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo present, officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) and the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) signed on Thursday a deal that would pave the way for Filipino chess grandmasters to train teachers in the “game of kings and queens.”

DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus and NCFP president Prospero Pichay signed an agreement for the chess organization to help the DepEd institutionalize the teaching of chess from Grade 3 until high school so that the country would achieve “90 percent chess literacy” and regain its “chess supremacy in Asia.”

“It is because chess is considered a game that encourages a higher level of thinking that DepEd this year will start teaching it in elementary and high school,” Lapus said during the signing held at the DepEd central office in Pasig City.

The event also marked the creation of the National Chess Academy (NCA) which will serve as the training venue for chess teachers, students, coaches, and arbiters. It will also organize age-group tournaments in all regions.

Lapus added that chess has been one sporting event where Filipinos had a greater chance of producing “super grandmasters.”

“Just like Wesley So, our youngest and highest rated Filipino grandmaster who is just a few notches away from the elite club of world chess,” he said.

Lapus said the NCA would hold office at the De La Salle University under the supervision of NCFP Vice-President and Former Commission on Higher Education chair Rolando Dizon, FSC.

The academy's executive director will be Bong Belen, whose school in Tanauan, Batangas, the First Asian Institute of Technology and Humanities (FAITH) will serve as the main training center, according to Lapus.

After the signing, Lapus and Pichay presented their agreement to the President, who graced the signing that was also attended by Filipino grandmasters Eugene Torre and Buenaventura Villamayor.

Starting this month, Villamayor will head a team that will train an initial 195 DepEd chess coordinators and school coordinators from around the country.

They will undergo a three-day seminar workshop, after which a Certificate of Chess Competence will be awarded to those who successfully pass a “Competency Test to be administered by the NCFP through the NCA.”

“We want this because even if you know how to play chess that does not mean that you know how to teach it,” Lapus said.

DepEd plans to start teaching chess in October to students in Grades 3 to 6 through their Edukasyon sa Pagpapalakas ng Katawan (Physical Education) subject and to high school students.

Lapus said that DepEd wanted to teach chess to students because children, “when exposed to this game at an early age, achieve academically better or even faster than those” who have no experience with the game.

He said chess has been among the activities that help “build memory skills, concentration, self-confidence, self-esteem and in making discipline decisions.”

“Playing chess provides opportunities to practice such values as perseverance, honesty, and sportsmanship,” Lapus said.