The sports community will never be the same again. At least for now, when the threat to humanity of the COVID-19 pandemic remains in our midst. At the Philippine Sports Commission, while the routinary administrative functions including meetings and conferences continue, the carrying out of a major mandate–implementation of sports programs like competitions– has been put on hold, PSC Commissioner Charles Raymond Maxey, said.
That is why, Maxey, in his FB post, disclosed, they came up with the idea of staging a webinar to celebrate the Indigenous Peoples Month this Oct. 31.
Webinar on IPs
The Oct. 31 event, entitled “Webinar on the Preservation of Culture and Heritage through Indigenous Sports”, will be a forum via Zoom that will be broadcast live starting 1 p.m. on the PSC social media pages. The 1,000 attendee slots were quickly filled a day after the PSC posted the announcement on FB.
The activity is an extension of the PSC’s Indigenous Peoples Games, according to Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez. The holding of the IP Games for many years, Chairman Butch said, traces its roots in Davao, where he served as consultant to Mayor-turned-President Rodrigo Duterte. Back then, they would stage the annual Davao Tribal Games, recalled Ramirez, who had served as varsity sports executive of the Ateneo de Davao University before his first appointment as PSC chief by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. He served the agency until 2019 and was appointed PSC chair again by PRRD in 2016.
Even in his first term, Ramirez had championed sports as a vehicle to promote peace in southern Philippines.
The Children’s Games, which he pioneered and sustained to this day, has already been extolled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as the only government-run sports event all over the world worthy of recognition.
The PSC said that the webinar will serve as preparation for the eventual revival of the IP Games after the pandemic.
‘Sports leader of the Peripheries’
The FB post of Dr. Aparecio Mequi, the pioneering and living spirit behind the sports education movement in the country, easily caught my attention Wednesday.
Doc Perry, as he is popularly known in the sports community, paid a tribute to Chairman Butch. It was a timely and relevant recognition as he recounted the PSC chief’s journey two years ago to the remote villages of Dinapigue, the last town of Isabela province bordering Casiguran in Aurora.
“October is the National Indigenous Peoples Month. As the most senior sports lover in the Philippines, I take it upon myself to recognize PSC Chairman William Ramirez as the first and only sports official to visit the Agta Tribe of the Sierra Madre mountains. Thus, to my mind, he should be bestowed the title as “Sports Leader of the Peripheries”. In keeping with the tradition of his educational foundation, “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (For the greater glory of God),” Doc Perry wrote on FB.
The post of Doc Perry, who also served as PSC’s second chairman from 1992-93, didn’t escape Ramirez’s attention. The latter thanked Dr. Mequi for his generous words.
Road less travelled
For Chairman Butch, the trip to Dinapigue wasn’t an easy one. It took his party long hours before reaching the remote municipality, which he described as “a place forgotten by time”.
“We took the road less travelled, literally. We crossed rivers and jungles,” Chairman Ramirez told this writer Wednesday this week.
“But when we finally reached the place, and the tribal folk warmly received us, it was a very touching moment. It was a very moving experience talking and listening to them, the destitute Indigenous Peoples of these areas,” he further told Negros Weekly and Negros Now Daily.
Interacting with the children of the tribesmen, he continued, “was a celebration of humanity”. He said he hopes to sustain the program for the IPs there and make another visit someday.
The joys and smiles on the faces of children warmed our hearts as they received PSC shirts and sports equipment, he said.
Told that there are many IP communities in the hinterlands of Negros and Panay, too, Chairman Ramirez was quick to instruct this corner to better start organizing our own IP Games because when things get better, he will send a team from the PSC headed by Commissioner Maxey, the agency’s point person for IP and Children’s Games. NWI
