PALEMBANG, Indonesia—The region’s best athletes, including more than 500 Filipino bets, and some of its highest leaders converge in this thriving capital city of South Sumatra when the 26th Southeast Asian Games opens Friday at the newly built Jakabaring Sports Center here.
A six-hour ceremony, featuring songs, dances, cultural presentations and fireworks, highlighted by the parade of delegates from 11 participating countries will usher in the two-week biennial meet being staged simultaneously in the national capital, Jakarta, and West Java.
Guangzhou Asian Games boxing champion Rey Saludar will carry the Philippine flag followed by tennis ace Jeson Patrombon and fin swimmer Danielle Torres while wearing the traditional Philippine costumes of Barong Tagalog and Maria Clara gown.
The Brunei Darussalam contingent will lead the parade, followed by the entries from Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam and the host country, an archipelago of 13,466 islands with a population of 246,000 million.
After the parade of delegates competing in 22 sports here, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will formally declare the Games open, followed by the lighting of the cauldron, which will burn up to Nov 22.
Filipino actress/singer KC Concepcion will render the Games’ official song “Together We Will Shine” before the parade of athletes at the 40,000-seat main stadium.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping Cojuangco Jr., Philippine Sports Commission chief Richie Garcia, acting Chef de Mission Romeo Magat and Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia, Ma. Rosario Aguinaldo, are expected to lead the national contingent in the opening rites.
They will be joined by world-renowned Efren “Bata” Reyes, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Dennis Orcollo and Rubilen Amit of billiards.
Other Filipino athletes are in Jakarta like wushu artist Denbert Arcita, world champion in the 52-kg division of sanda (combat), Asian Games titlists Biboy Rivera (bowling) and Grandmaster Wesley So (chess).
Action in women’s water polo also went under way with the Filipinos having no entries. The men’s water polo team begins campaign on Sunday. Over in Lake Cipule in West Java, identical twins Alex and Alvin Generalo will open up the Philippine campaign in canoe/kayak Friday, with five golds at stake.
Garcia has predicted a total haul of 70 golds for the Filipinos, which should place them in the top four overall.