A pitch for Baguio

PUERTO PRINCESA – aguio City Mayor Peter Ray Bautista is in town to cheer for the four boys and two girls he brought here to compete at the National Youth Boxing Championships.

One of Bautista’s boys, Wencyl Brian Abes, got the Baguio squad off to a flying start with a win over Palawan’s Franklin Pagdatu in the 30-kilogram vacuumweight class of the kids 11-12 age group Monday night.

Baguio is among 39 teams entered in the five-day conclave which ends Friday. The teams are split into four divisions – National Capital Region, Southern and Northern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Only six teams listed at least 10 fighters – Palawan Team A with 27, Barangay Una-Davao del Norte with 17, Bago City and Bacolod City with 15 each, Mandaluyong with 11 and Tagbilaran City with 10.

Although Baguio’s contingent is relatively small, Bautista went out of his way to attend the hostilities. He also came for the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (ABAP) board meeting as a member of the deputy executive directors committee.

Bautista, 40, said sports is high in his priority list and he dreams of someday transforming Baguio as the home base for the national training center. At the moment, Baguio is where athletes from ABAP and the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association train.

A two-term Mayor who is running for congress in the coming elections, Bautista said he has big plans of converting the Burnham lake and grounds complex into a modern sports facility.

Last year, management of the Burnham spread was turned over to Baguio by the National Parks Development Committee and Bautista said he’s in the process of raising funds to spruce up the complex which has a track oval and two swimming pools of 25 and 50 meters.

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Bautista said he is also raising funds to fully pay GSIS for the city to own the International Convention Center which hosted the world chess championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in 1978. The bill is P250 million and so far, the city has paid P150 million. The center is conducive for chess and indoor combat sports like taekwondo, muay thai, wushu, karate and judo.

Bautista said Baguio is known for crowning the “King of the Mountain” during the city leg of the Padyak Pinoy cycling competition. The leg is an eight-figure race up and down the Marcos Highway and Kennon Road with the city providing a trophy and a check for P8,888 to the “king.”

What’s most attractive about Bautista’s proposal for Baguio to become the national training center is his offer of scholarships at the family-owned University of Baguio.

“Our doors are open for our national athletes,” said Bautista whose grandfather Fernando founded the university, now with a student population of 18,000, in 1948. “Athletes train every day in the morning and late afternoon so there’s time in between for classwork. Our track stars who used to train in Baguio earned degrees from our university. Some of them were Hector Begeo, Lydia de la Vega, Elma Muros and Isidro del Prado. National boxer Gerson Nietes is now enrolled in criminology.”

Bautista said schools in Baguio are equipped with top-class sports facilities for volleyball, badminton and basketball so it’s no problem finding gyms for athletes to train in.

Bautista cited Manny Pacquiao’s choice of Baguio to train for Miguel Cotto as a testament to the city’s stature as a world-class sports center.

“Manny trained at the Cooyeesan Hotel Plaza and was very happy with its boxing and basketball facilities,” said Bautista. “I was honored as the only one outside of his training team to watch his sparring with Shawn Porter at Cooyeesan. Porter was much bigger than Manny and I saw how Porter really belted Manny. But Manny took his hardest shots. That’s when I realized Cotto couldn’t hurt Manny. Near the end of his training program in Baguio, Manny even knocked down Porter to show he was reaching his peak.”

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In 2007, Baguio City hosted the PBA All-Star Game which was a rousing success. And last year, the city sponsored a basketball team in Liga Pilipinas.

Bautista said the whole city is proud of local girl Alice Kate Aparri’s showing at the Laos Southeast Asian Games last year. Aparri won the gold medal in the lightflyweight category of women’s boxing.

“Kate was my student in two business management subjects at the university,” said Bautista. “She was taking up hotel and restaurant management, a course I introduced in the curriculum.”

When Aparri was asked to rate Bautista as a professor on a scale of one to 10, she raised both hands, extended 10 fingers and said, “10, of course.”

Bautista described himself as an “accidental” politician. He had no long-term plans to be in public service when he was elected Councilor in 1995. But Bautista was overtaken by events and the public clamor for him to continue in government. He was voted Vice Mayor and later Mayor for two terms.