PSC hopes athletes can return to Rizal Memorial, Philsports as cases decline

Facade of the Rizal Memorial Coliseum. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Team Philippines sees a bright new hope amid the coronavirus pandemic that put everything on hold the past year.

With quarantine cases continuing to go down, the Philippine Sports Commission is hoping to return national athletes training for Tokyo and Vietnam to its facilities by April 1.

PSC-managed Rizal Memorial Sports Complex and Philsports, which were converted into quarantine facilities by the national government last year, are almost empty of Covid-19 patients.

“In Manila I think there’s no more patients,” PSC chair Butch Ramirez told the Inquirer. “There’s still a few in Philsports. But we are preparing for April 1 resumption of training there.”

Lawyer Guillermo Iroy, the PSC executive director, reported that the Ninoy Aquino Stadium and the Rizal Memorial Stadium no longer have patients but remain under “NCR care.”

NAS has been converted into a “mega-swabbing facility.”

Meanwhile, there are 16 patients at Philsports as of Thursday, out of the 132 cubicles put up inside the venue. On Thursday there were only two admissions.

If and when the inter-agency task force approves of his request, Ramirez said they will allow training but with strict IATF and Department of Health protocols.

The country’s athletes are preparing for the Tokyo Olympics in July and the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games in November.

The PSC has put up facilities in Calamba under the bubble format as athletes in several sports like taekwondo, boxing and karate resumed their preparation for Olympic qualifiers.

SEAG chief of mission, PSC commissioner Ramon Fernandez has also sought the return of athletes to the facilities, the better to prepare for the country’s campaign in the biennial meet.