Philippine Accessible Disability Services Inc. (PADS) Dragon Boat Racing Team sealed a historic win in the 14th International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) World Nations Championships in Pattaya, Thailand with two more gold medals for a total of four. When did you hear of a Filipino sporting team win not just two but four gold medals for our country?
Three years ago, PADS won in the International Paradragon Boat championship in Hong Kong in June 2017. But since it was their first effort, no one knew who was this group of persons with disabilities (PWDs) vying for a very popular Dragon Boat competition. I just knew of them, as I was able to interview them on my SkyCable talkshow in Straight from the Sky. However, no one expected them to win that race and so when June 2018 came, they asked me for support and I figured out that this was going to be a good opportunity to sponsor their efforts and so I asked the International Marketing Group (img), Kaiser Health Group, the Manila Bankers (MBLife) and MyTV Cable channel 30.
Then came June 25, 2018 in Hong Kong and PADS won a back-to-back victory, winning their championship. Team captain Arnold Balais told me in our TV show that the team’s success is a fruit of all their hard work in the past three months. He said that there’s more pressure this year but they were able to overcome it. Of course, img has a huge office in Hong Kong and many of its members went to cheer PADS and they won that race hands down. Thus this stunning victory gave them a great popularity that, finally they were able to meet up with no less than Pres. Rodrigo Duterte when he was in Cebu.
So for the Year 2019, PADS team manager JP Maunes asked me once more to be their principal sponsor and we did exactly that. So last June, the team of PADS went into a three-month training to make sure that victory was going to be easily earned. When it was time to leave for Hong Kong, the PADS team was already in the airport in Mactan for their flight when they were told of an unexpected bad news that due to the start of the Hong Kong demonstrations, the Dragon Boat Festival was suddenly cancelled.
No doubt, this was a huge disappointment to the PADS team who has been practicing to do a three-peat in the Paradragon races.
But PADS apparently was also eyeing another dragon boat race, this time the 14th International Dragon Boat Festival (IDBF) in Pattaya, Thailand, which is considered the Olympic games for the Dragon Boat races. After several meetings with JP Maunes, it was all go for PADS to join the 14th IDBF on Aug. 25, 2019. I sent a MyTV cameraman Joel Noel to video this event. He was also in Hong Kong with PADS last year, which is why MyTV has a complete video presentation of last year’s PADS win.
Last Sunday, Joel Noel sent me a message that PADS won four gold medals, two silvers and four bronze medals. PADS won the PD 1 and PD 2 divisions of the 200-meter and 500-meter small boat categories. History has been made, mind you not by able-bodied athletes, but persons with disabilities (PWDs) who are now officially World Champions in the international Paradragon competition. Again we ask our readers, how many Filipino sportsmen or women have won gold medals in their sporting category? In Cebu our world champions for the International Paradragon races are called PADS! Congratulations for a job well done!
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With tropical depression “Ineng” finally leaving the Philippine Area of Responsibllty (PAR), then PAGASA tells us that Tropical Depression “Jenny” will soon enter PAR, which means more rains for the country. This is the problem of our nation which complains during summertime that we are running out of water, but that complaint disappears when we get more rains than we need. Thankfully Metro Manila has the La Mesa Dam and the Angat Dam where water becomes critical during summer time, but overflows when there is too much rain.
Unfortunately, Metro Cebu doesn’t have facilities like the dams of Metro Manila. The Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) franchise area from Compostela in the North all the way to Talisay City in the South can only deliver 230,000 cubic meters of potable water. But the need for Metro Cebu is 560,000 cubic meters per day; hence the residents of Metro Cebu get their water from underground aquifer.
Mind you, all the water districts all over the country was enacted into a law in 1973 by then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. The problem stems from the fact that all water districts have to serve their clients with potable water. Hence, people take a bath, wash their cars, flush their toilets with expensive to produce potable water. Back in 1973 people drink their water from the faucets. But today, the people living as squatters drink bottled water.
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