RMSC, Ultra dorms to be refurbished

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Sports Commission said athletes’ dormitories inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex (RMSC) will be up for refurbishing to improve the living conditions of athletes.

PSC chairman Ricardo Garcia said the board, after a recent ocular, found the quarters in poor status and made it their priority to make the necessary improvements to make the rooms a lot more comfy for their 151 residents.

“We’ll make sure that in January, we’ll be improving the living conditions here at Rizal Memorial,” Garcia said.”How can we expect them to perform if their living conditions are poor?”

The PSC chief said they will clean up and repaint the existing quarters, install floor tiles, and fix doors, electrical wires and other utilities, if needed.

Stay-ins at the RMSC occupy the Tower and the quarters located in the vicinity of the main stadium, the boxing gym, and the baseball stadium. Some stay at the pencak silat gym, but because it is located near a creek, Garcia said it will be closed to stay-ins and utilized only for training purposes.

The old dorms that used to house bets inside the badminton hall, meanwhile, will be revived to serve the athletes again, said Garcia.

The rest of the Team Phl members, 111 athletes and 21 foreign coaches in all, are based in the dorms at the PhilSports Complex.

Garcia said the PhilSports’ quarters are in a lot better shape but they will have to be modified a bit to make them more comfortable for the occupants.

“The rooms are actually big enough to accommodate 15 athletes each. We may have to place dividers to convert them into smaller rooms because we think the ideal situation is to have a maximum of four per room,” he said.

The RMSC quarters’ facelift will not be done in one fell swoop, though.

“We’ve identified certain rooms that are currently ready for occupancy. What we’ll do is move the athletes there, renovate the other rooms and so on. It will be (a) continuous (project) but (at a rate of) one room at a time,” he said.

Garcia said the PSC will allocate funding for the renovations, although they have yet to make a total cost estimate at this time. “It’s not going to be very expensive, though, since there won’t be structural changes,” he explained.