Arnis underpromises and overdelivers, collects 14 golds to fuel PH medal drive

Arnis federation president Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri gives Sheena del Monte, the 50-kilograms or less bantamweight gold medalist, a tight embrace after the arnis bets won their 14th gold medal on Monday.

Arnis won an unprecedented 14 gold medals in the ongoing 30th Southeast Asian Games, easily becoming the biggest contributor to the Philippine medal cache as the Philippine Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation bets of Sen. Juan Miguel Zuburi overdelivered on their association president’s promise.

“I promised 12 gold medals, and we delivered 14,” Zubiri said after giving cash incentives and a Hong Kong Disneyland trip to his players. “I could not have asked for anything more from my players. They did a great job.”

Mary Allin Aldeguer and  Crisamuel Delfin bagged the 13th and 14th golds for Philippine arnis after ruling their respective “anyo” open weapon nontraditional events on Monday.

Zubiri believes the team could have gone for 16, if not for a spate of bad luck in two form events.

“Form events are subjective,” Zubiri said. “Judges make the decisions in terms of style, movement and technique. We just didn’t get the breaks in those events.”

During the closing ceremonies of arnis, Zubiri led the passing of Lapu-Lapu’s “sword” to team Vietnam with hopes of arnis being included in the 2021 Games in Hanoi.