CVIRAA Thoughts

Another CVIRAA is about to end tomorrow in Balamban. Over 8,000 athletes from 19 different divisions/teams of the Department of Education competed in various events for the right to represent the Central Visayas at the Palarong Pambansa 2015. It’s an annual experience that athletes, coaches and officials will always remember for the total package that a CVIRAA always provides: a unique opportunity to be part of an Olympic-style event with several sporting events taking place in different venues of the host town or city. When the dust clears tomorrow, the region would’ve formed a delegation for the Palaro while all participants will heave a sigh of relief, celebrate the wins, forget the losses, and soak up all the learnings from the one-week meet. Over-all, it will all turn out to be one big win for all just by being part of the event alone. This is an event that should be on an athlete’s bucket list (win or lose).

As we review every CVIRAA year in and year out (including the ones that we joined “years” ago), we can’t help but notice that while the event is considered a prestigious one to which every athlete looks up, a lot of important “must have” items have remained the same: absent. Make no mistake about it. The CVIRAA has served its purpose of pitting the best  of the region against each other and is now looking forward to the Palaro where we’ve always been good for only fourth or fifth place behind the likes of NCR, Calabarzon and the West Visayas. But there’s a need to go beyond these objectives which have been the same since way back. There’s a need to level up and find ways to go the extra mile in sports development. There’s a need to review the long term goals for which the CVIRAA was established. Now that’s a big “IF” - if the region wants to be a serious contender at every Palaro.

There’s a need for a comprehensive and joint effort among the DEPED, LGU’s and local sports organizations to get the job done. The good news is that there are models that are already in place. The events in which the CV has performed well at the Palaro have the following key success factors (not in any order): facilities, strong program of competitions and training down to the grassroots/age-group levels, strong backing of a private league, good coaching and solid support from patrons or supporters. As regards facilities, we can’t claim to have excellent sports centres as compared to NCR, Calabarzon and West Visayas. The irony here is that only the cities of Cebu and Dumaguete have sports centers at par with the rest of the country. We’re even topped by our West Visayas neighbors which bank on Iloilo, Bacolod, and Roxas for excellent facilities. In Cebu alone, the urbanized cities of Mandaue and Lapu-lapu do not have sports centers of their own. Note that we’re talking about a sports complex with multi-sport capabilities. The province of Cebu doesn’t have a sports complex that it can call home for sports development, something which I hope the Cebu Provincial Sports Commission will strongly consider. Even the typhoon-ravaged Leyte has better sports facilities than Cebu, believe it not.

Then there’s a need for a strong set of competitions for all events outside the CVIRAA which is only good for a week. Events like basketball and football have the likes of the CESAFI, NBTC, CYBL, BEST SBP/Passerelle, Aboitiz Football Cup, football festivals, invitational tournaments outside Cebu and other privately-run endeavors. Swimming and taekwondo aren’t far behind but can also increase its frequency of competitions. Each sport should take a closer look at the mirror and ask itself every year, “How many events or competitions do we have every year? Are these enough to produce gold medals at the Palaro?” This is also where the leadership of each sport or event is crucial. Each sport needs to have a “champion” of a leader who will tow the sport to higher grounds. All these competitions assume that all areas are also busy with training, clinics and simply put: practice. If the entire province is busy at practice due to the staging of many competitions all year-round, there’s no way we can’t improve our level of competence. As an example, CV/Don Bosco’s football and CV/SHS-Ateneo de Cebu’s basketball gold medals at the Palaro was a result of a combination of grassroots/age group training, joining various tough competitions and having the facilities for training and games. The same is true of all the 24 gold medals that the Central Visayas won at the 2014 Palarong Pambansa and all golds from previous Palaro appearances. If we can win all these gold medals with our limited sports facilities, I’m pretty sure we can win more with better and more facilities across the region.

But all these won’t happen without the support of generous local government units and private patrons. Sports development doesn’t come for free and needs the support of as many entities as possible. We hope the LGU’s and private sports associations be more pro-active and creative in tapping the assistance of patrons. Equipment, facilities, training, competition and coaches’ fees are the basic needs for any sport; without these, we don’t have a sports program.

So what will it be? Will we remain content that for every CVIRAA-to- Palaro appearance, we’re only good for fourth place? Or will we work together for reaching new heights?