Budget for 2012 Cebu Sports Festival gets huge slash

CEBU, Philippines - Despite the limited budget, the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) remains upbeat on staging the 3rd Cebu Sports Festival, which will now be dubbed as “Great Sports Festival and Expo Cebu”, from May 17 to 20 at the South Road Properties.

From P2 million last year, the budget has been slashed down to P600,000 but CCSC is willing to exhaust all ways and means to fill in the deficit.

As their initial step, CCSC executive director Brando Velasquez met with the different tournament directors yesterday and advised them to come up with their respective budgets so they could identify the sporting events that need help from private sponsors.

“To some extent, we have a little problem with the budget but I gathered all the tournament directors and advised them to look for sponsors. We have also set a deadline on when they will tell us whether or not they could come up with the budget,” said Velasquez.

The Great Sports Festival and Expo Cebu feature three components. The first would be an expo, tapping the suppliers to set up booths showcasing sports apparel and equipment. Second is a coaches’ seminar with resource persons tapped by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and the third would be the sports competition featuring the Palaro sports and water sports.

Velasquez said they will ask PSC to tap some resource speakers for the symposium that will take up sports psychology, nutrition, injury prevention and management.

 Commissioner Brian Lim, on the other hand, is encouraging all the participants in last year’s water sports such as wakeboarding and kite surfing to still participate in the Cebu Fest at their own expense. - THE FREEMAN