18-sport Prisaa schedule this season

MANILA, Philippines — The Private Schools Athletic Association (Prisaa) will unveil its 59th season on April 22 to 28 in Cebu City with a heavy roster of 18 sports, 10 more from last year’s competition program.

Speaking at the recent Scoop sa Kamayan, Prisaa national executive director Elbert “Bong” Atilano said about 5,000 student-athletes and officials from 500 private schools will gather for the annual games.

Atilano said a conflict with the Philippine Sports Commission over venue rentals at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex forced the Prisaa to reduce its scheduled events to eight last year.

“Anyway, that’s already water under the bridge, and we were able to move on,” he said. “What we are looking forward to now is a successful and more colorful Prisaa so we can continue with our mandate to help in identifying fresh sports talents from the country’s school population and develop them to become national athletes.”

Last year’s competitions were held in Zamboanga City with the city and provincial governments spending P5 million to stage them.

This time, according to Atilano, the games will have individual competitions in athletics, swimming, boxing, badminton, chess, karatedo, lawn tennis, taekwondo, judo, dancesports and table tennis.

Team competitions are also scheduled in basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, regular volleyball, sepak takraw, softball and football.