Smart backs volleybelles SEA elims bid

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications, a long-time supporter of Philippine sports, is taking up the cudgels for Team Philippines as chief backer of the squad competing in the South East Asian Qualification tournament beginning tomorrow in Quang Tri, Vietnam.

Five members of the National U squad, recent winner of the Shakey’s V-League Season 10 First Conference crown, spearhead the campaign of the POC-PSC Sports V-Belles, who drew the support of the country’s leading telecommunications firm in time for the three-day event serving as a qualifier for the Asian Zonals.

“Smart is one with the Filipino nation in wishing our volleyball team great success. Let’s relive the old glory,” said Smart Communications chief wireless advisor Doy Vea.

The team, composed of the Santiago sisters – Dindin and Jaja, Rubie de Leon, Myla Pablo and Jennylyn Reyes of NU, Ateneo’s Alyssa Valdez, UST’s Maika Ortiz and Rhea Dimaculangan, Adamson’s Pau Soriano, Iari Yongco of La Salle-Dasmariñas, Perpetual Help’s Jheck Dionela and former league MVP Suzanne Roces, left for Vietnam yesterday.

Accel and the Philippine Sports Commission are the team’s two other backers with the former as the delegation’s official outfitter and the latter shouldering the team’s airfare.

The Philippines will slug it out with top teams from Myanmar, Indonesia and the host country for a spot in the Zonals, which stakes a berth in the 2014 World Women’s Volleyball Championship.

The team was formed last week through the initiative of the Philippine Olympic Committee after the Asian Volleyball Confederation sought the help of the country’s top sporting body to put up the squad after the Philippine Volleyball Federation, the country’s national sports association (NSA) for the sport, declined the invitation to play.

The POC immediately linked it up with Sports Vision, organizer of the Shakey’s V-League, the country’s premier women’s volley league, to gather all the best players from the recently concluded First Conference, including from those which finished in the top four.

Ateneo’s Roger Gorayeb is the head coach with Edjet Mabbayad and Ariel dela Cruz of National U as assistants.