Aggressive PH sports grassroots program up

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Sports Commission will bankroll the salaries of about 500 coaches and former athletes who will be fanned out all over the country to educate local trainers and teachers in line with the agency’s grassroots sports development program.

PSC chair Richie Garcia Saturday said the program was approved during the recent Sports Summit held at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., said the summit took the theme of “working together and pooling all the resources for a grassroots program nationwide from municipal, provincial and regional organizations.”

“The most important thing here is that the LGUs (local government units) wanted to get involved,” Garcia told the Inquirer. “They offered their facilities become training centers.”

The program is also seen as a way to help maintain sports facilities in the provinces which were constructed to stage the annual Palarong Pambansa only to lie idle afterward.

But the main problem, Garcia pointed out, is the local coaches’ lack of technical skill to elevate their training to competition level.

“That’s why we thought of this as our outreach program,” Garcia said.

He added that the PSC will pay national coaches and retired athletes P15,000 a month while they share their technical know-how with the coaches in about 250 LGUs across the country.

Among the top five sports the LGUs expressed interest in are basketball, volleyball, boxing, taekwondo and football.

The PSC already has a satellite office in Cebu but Garcia said they are planning to re-open the Mindanao office in Davao and establish more branches in Visayas like Bacolod, Leyte and Iloilo, and new ones in Northern and Southern Luzon.

“This is going to be an active year for the grassroots development,” added Garcia.