Peping bats for Clark as training hub

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose Cojuangco Jr. yesterday pushed for his ambitious and yet logical plan of setting up a new Olympic training center at the Clark Field in Pampanga.

Cojuangco said it’s about time that the hundreds of Filipino athletes being housed in separate training centers in Manila, Pasig and Baguio are placed under one roof, safe and conducive for training.

The former congressman from Tarlac had previously offered a 50-hectare area in the family-owned Hacienda Luisita to serve as the training center and retirement village for the national athletes.

The plan already got the approval of the Olympic Council of Asia, which gave the POC $50,000 to put up the plan. Cojuangco said the money is still intact and the blueprint for the project ready.

“But if we can work it out to have the training center built in Clark then we can re-design the plan. Let’s bring all of them to Clark Field. All the sports,” said Cojuangco in the weekly radio program “POC Hour.”

In yesterday’s DZSR radio program that lasted two hours, Cojuangco was joined by members of the new Philippine Sports Commission board, including chairman Richie Garcia and commissioners Buddy Andrada, Jolly Gomez and Chito Loyzaga.

It could take billions of pesos to build a new training center inside the former American airbase, and this early, the POC president has offered a possible source of funding.

It involves the privatization of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, which was built in 1934 and sits on an eight-hectare prime lot along Vito Cruz and Adriatico streets in Malate.

The RMSC’s ownership is being debated upon by the City of Manila and the national government.

“Maybe the PSC can sit down with Mayor Alfredo Lim of Manila because they are the two claimants of the property. They can probably offer it for lease for 50 years and they divide the income,” said Cojuangco.