CVIRAA Experience

Every time the months of February or March come around, just when students get into the final stretch of the schoolyear, the region hits its peak period of the sports calendar. This is when over 6,000 athletes coming from the different divisions of the Department of Education (DEPED) get together for the games of the annual CVIRAA or Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association. The CVIRAA 2010 ends today in Danao City, with favorite Cebu City bagging the over-all championship (expectedly).

And so another year has passed and all the athletes go back to their respective hometowns, bringing with them tons of experiences and a more mature outlook towards sports. The CVIRAA and all the other regional meets across the country is an experience that all athletes should go through. At every meet, an athlete is there not only for the sports part per se, but one gets to experience a whole lot more. By tagging along with athletes from other schools within one division and living with them for one week, an athlete makes new friends, all of who they played against at the previous city games. They also get to meet new friends among competitors from the other divisions who will now become Central Visayas teammates if they make it all the way to the national finals, the Palarong Pambansa which will be held in Tarlac in April.

By living, eating and sleeping in athletes’ quarters, one gets to learn how to be on his (her) own, away from the comforts of home and the presence of parents. His teammates become family, and an instant bond is formed. Discipline is instilled as all athletes wake up together, sleep at the same time and follow a schedule set for all. They’ll even have to wash their own clothes and clean their own rooms. Parents should relish this type of activities which don’t come at a cost. There’s more to gain from all this. The region’s best athletes will go through this once again when they head off to Tarlac in April. Travelling to Manila, then Tarlac will be an additional item on their activities, and the whole experience is repeated, but this time at a national level where they’ll meet athletes speaking in a different dialect. At the end of the day, they’ll all go home again enriched with a priceless piece of experience.

But before I get stuck in this whole experience thing, we must also remember that the Palarong Pambansa program, along with the CVIRAA has a purpose for existence. These aren’t organized just for the sake of getting athletes to have a junket and have fun. These games are supposed to produce the country’s future world beaters and Olympic gold medalists. And the biggest question that faces the Palaro these days is, “Where are the products of the past Palaro’s?” The irony of it all is that after the staging of the different regional meets and Palaro which served as the grassroots component for a nationwide “talent search,” we still have to see what have come out of the Palaro’s products. The last real products of the Palaro have already retired a long time ago, and we haven’t heard of any successors to the likes of Lydia de Vega, Elma Muros and company. Funny, but a news story wrote that other products of the Palaro system included current GAB Chairman Eric Buhain, Onyok Velasco and Tshomlee Go. Aside from Go, where are the more recent products? I’m afraid that the likes of Buhain, Onyok, de Vega and Muros were from my time (and I’m not getting any younger).

While there is nothing strategically wrong about the Palaro program, one of the major items missing is a continuity program that will take care of the Palaro’s products (the country’s future stars) to make them even better. When you have the country’s best 12-year-old athletes right there in front of you, you’ve got to do something with them. We shouldn’t just congratulate them and then turn our backs. Let’s nurture, hone and take care of them, for they’re the country’s real potentials for a SEAG, Asian Games or even Olympic gold.

The Palaro has somehow turned out to become the last stop or apex of athletes instead of becoming a stepping stone to greatness. The situation could be even worse these days with the ongoing rift between the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC). I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see any major development based on the country’s performance at the 2009 Southeast Asian Games.

That’s what the Palaro is all about. It’s not just about the experience. My wish is that the over-all Palaro experience that athletes enjoy be also capped with a follow-through program for the future that will produce world beaters. Now wouldn’t that be a real experience?

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Time-out: Happy Valentine’s Day to all! >>> You can reach me at [email protected].