The Philippine Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) Games is a potential breeding ground for national athletes who can excel in international games, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Commissioner Matthew “Fritz” Gaston said.
“We can foresee that the Philippine ROTC Games is another means of spotting potential talents who one day will compete in international competitions,” noted Gaston in Bacolod City on Saturday, June 1, after observing some of the sports at the end of the Visayan qualifying leg of the meet for student cadet athletes.
Gaston cited arnis, the national sport, where over 150 athletes competed during three days of action in the sportsfest supported by the Department of National Defense, Commission on Higher Education and PSC.
“I gathered from arnis secretary general Gerald Canete that number of arnis participants could have been more, but some had to be turned away because they could not meet the registration requirements. I saw some of the matches and noted the high quality of their performance, of our arnis bets,” he said.
He also learned from Canete that some schools that do not have the ROTC program are now interested in including it as part of the activities of this institution, which would be a welcome development for both local sports and the ROTC.
“The Philippine ROTC Games could serve as a complimentary competition to other meets such as the Palarong Pambansa, Philippine National Games and Batang Pinoy Nationals,” said the PSC official, who himself was an ROTC cadet at Ateneo and also a leading advocate of the program.
He proposed that more disciplines be added to the sportsfest, with seven sports making their debut, including swimming and the raiders’ competition, an obstacle-course-like contest that gave the cadet athletes a glimpse of experiencing what it is like in a military boot camp.
Overall, the commissioner was pleased by the brainchild of Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino, a brigadier general reservist, who is co-author of the law to make the ROTC a compulsory program once again in colleges and universities.
Meanwhile, Iloilo Science and Technology Army cadets took overall honors with 17 gold, 14 silver and five gold medals in the meet, also backed by the Bacolod City government led by Mayor Albee Benitez.
Host school Carlos Hilado Memorial State University was second (12-17-7), Cebu Normal University, banking on its windfall in arnis, was third (11-4-8); while Capiz State University (7-6-6) and University of Antique (5-5-11) was fourth and fifth overall, respectively.
Depending on the sports and number of entries in each event, most of the winners in the Visayan leg will qualify for the Philippine ROTC Games national finals scheduled August 18 to 24 in Indang, Cavite province. (PNA)