New facilities, upgrade sought to boost Pinoy athletes’ training
PHILIPPINE Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Richard Bachmann sees the need to upgrade and even build new facilities at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex to improve the training conditions of Pinoy bets.
In line with this, Mr. Bachmann and his board have asked the Philippine Congress for a P3.7-billion funding.
“Before the Asian Games, we’ve been going back and forth to Congress and the Senate for two to three weeks, just asking for funding to fix all facilities. We’re asking for P3.7 billion in total; they told us to break it down per year and I think the first year is around P2.7 billion to fix the Rizal Memorial,” he said.
“When I say fix Rizal Memorial, it’s not just normal fixing; we are going to build and fix the baseball field, build the bowling area to an eight-storey building, build up the boxing and pencak silat areas, so we can accommodate more sports.
“So I’m hoping Congress and the Senate will help us out in the funding for our athletes,” he added.
The PSC is leaning on legislators to augment its warchest with the Department of Budget and Management allocating only P210 million as its share in the proposed national budget for 2024.
“If we do want to improve in sports and compete with others, we do have to actually improve our facilities,” said Mr. Bachmann. “And also LGUs (local government units) should actually get involved and build their own sports facilities so that athletes can have an easier time in training.”
Mr. Bachmann also deems it best to gather stakeholders for a sports summit and chart the course of Team Philippines moving forward.
“After experiencing the Asian Games, I think it’s high time that PSC sits down with all the NSAs (national sports associations) and try to actually fix and see how PSC can help and improve their sport,” he said.
“I’m also trying to introduce for this year a sports summit with everyone involved — POC (Philippine Olympic Committee), even the small stakeholders that can help for the Philippines to improve sports. We’ll have a summit to talk about Philippine sports. Hopefully that can happen, push through for us to be better in all sports.” — Olmin Leyba
