Palarong Pambansa unfolds

The 2007 Palarong Pambansa unfolds today in Koronadal, South Cotabato, with the country’s best and brightest student athletes from all 17 regions battling it out for pride, glory and a chance to make it to the national pool.

Philippine Sports Commission chairman William "Butch" Ramirez, who hails from Davao, will represent President Arroyo in the opening ceremonies at the South Cotabato Sports Complex.

The traditional parade of participating delegations and the lighting of the symbolic urn highlight the opening ceremonies of the games gathering around 10,000 athletes, coaches and officials.

"It’s all systems go and all the athletes are raring to go," said Len Toledo, who chairs the Department of Education’s Palaro secretariat.

Toledo said 18 sporting events will be played in the secondary level including indigenous arnis, which will debut this year as a regular sport after it was introduced in the 2006 Naga Palaro as a demo event.

Seventeen disciplines, including basketball, are listed in the elementary sports calendar.

Basketball has been re-included in the calendar after the country’s suspension in international play was lifted by the International Basketball Federation.

Events to be played are swimming, track and field, taekwondo, chess, football, volleyball, sepak takraw, table tennis, lawn tennis, badminton, gymnastics, dancesport, baseball, archery and softball.

Host Mayor Fernando Miguel welcomed the participants in the weeklong event.

"We want to prove that a young city as ours can make its own place not only in the corporate world but in sports as well," said Miguel in his short message in the Palaro website.

But "age cheating" and "identity switching" could spoil everything similar to what happened in last year’s Naga edition where 16 athletes were found to have committed such offense.

The DepEd has put safety nets to prevent these incidents from happening again.

The DepEd has required participants to submit birth certificates authenticated by the National Statistics Office and signed not only by their coaches and advisers but also the district superintendents and principals, who would be held accountable should there be violators in their delegation.

"We have implemented stricter guidelines because we don’t want these issues to occur again," said Toledo.

Another potential problem is the searing temperature, which caused 50 cases of heat stroke during the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao regional athletic meet last month in neighboring Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

"We have a medical team deployed in key areas. We’ll be ready," said Toledo, who briefed the combined medical staff of the host city and the DepEd early this month to ensure the health of all concerned. –Joey Villar