Rizal Memorial, Ninoy Aquino Stadium done being temporary COVID-19 facilities

MANILA, Philippines – After two years, the COVID-19 facilities at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum (RMC) and Ninoy Aquino Stadium (NAS) inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila will be returned for national team use starting next week.

Ramon Fernandez, a Philippine Sports Commission board member and the country’s Hanoi Southeast Asian Games chef-de-mission, bared the good news of the return of the venues that were used as quarantine and COVID-19 testing areas since April of 2020.

“Good news. NAS and RMC will be turned over next week,” said Fernandez.

The development gives national athletes preparing for the Hanoi Games set May 12-23 and the Hangzhou Asian Games slated September 10-25 two extra venues to train while it would save the sports-funding agency money since they will no longer pay rent for training venues.

Slowly, national athletes have started to come in and train in the RMC, NAS and the PhilSports Complex in Pasig City in bubble set ups, or less than three months before the biennial event comes off the wraps.

The Teacher’s Camp in Baguio is also being used as training venue by some national teams as early as January.

There were several others also who trained on their own in the provinces early this year.

Fernandez said there is no news yet as to when the PhilSports Complex, which is also being used for COVID-19 purposes, will be returned but he expect it to be done soon especially the pandemic situation is slowly but surely improving.