Over 5,000 participate in PRISAA in Cebu

MANILA, Philippines - Some 5,000 to 6,000 athletes, coaches and officials are expected to visit Cebu City on April 22-28 to celebrate the 59th anniversary of the Private Schools Athletic Association.

Participants will be coming from the 500 of the total 2,500 private schools throughout the archipelago, Elbert “Bong” Atilano, national executive director of PRISAA, announced during Friday’s SCOOP Sa Kamayan weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.

 Seventeen events in 18 sports will be contested – 11 in the individual and seven in team competitions, according to Atilano during the forum, sponsored by Coca-Cola Export, TV-5, FILA and UNTV.

“Nine sports will be re-included this year from the eight that were disputed in Zamboanga in 2011,” said Atilano, who attended the session with baseball commissioner Ely Baradas in tow.

Each of the 17 regions from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao is allowed a maximum of 300 athletes and coaches to comprise their delegations.

“Last year’s edition could have been held right here in Manila but the PSC was asking for P1.8 million payment for the use of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex – which we were unable to raise,” said Atilano, who represents the University of Zamboanga in the PRISAA board.

“Luckily for us, Zamboanga, with the help of the city and provincial government units agreed to host the meet to the tune of P4 to P5 million, which, because of time constraints was reduced to only eight sports,” Atilano added.

“Anyway, that’s already water under the bridge, we were able to move on. What we are looking forward now is for a successful and more colorful PRISAA so we can continue with our mandate to help identify fresh sports talents from the country’s school population and develop them to become national athletes,” Atilano stressed.

From the time it was organized in 1953, PRISAA has been one of the main sources of national athletes who have carried the national flag and brought honors to the country in the Asian Games, Olympic Games, Asian and world championships among them Andres Franco, Rogelio Onofre, Mona Sulaiman, Josephine dela Vina, Lydia de Vega and Lolita Logrosas in athletics, Pedro Cayco, Parsons Nabiula, Susan Papa, Ral Rosario and William Wilson in swimming and almost all members of the national basketball teams in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The PRISAA then served as counterpart of the Public Schools Interscholastic (PISAAA) meet, which was the forerunner of the now Palarong Pambansa.

Team competitions will be in basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, regular volleyball, sepak takraw, softball and football, while individual play will focus on athletics, swimming, boxing, badminton, chess, karatedo, lawn tennis, taekwondo, judo, dance sports and table tennis.

For the first time in tdhe history of the meet, seminar-workshop on training the trainors and officiating will be conducted prior to the actual games.