Palaro organizers remind teams of impending deadline

Palaro ng Bayan executive director Anthony Nicanor said yesterday that local government units have unitl Thursday to submit their original list of athletes which will participate in the event set on Feb. 26-March 5 in General Santos City.

Nicanor bared that they are giving the remaining LGUs which have yet to file their list to comply with the deadline or else suffer the consequence of not playing in the national tilt.

"We are not going to accept anyone after the deadline, which is on Feb. 10. If they still failed to do so after that, we wouldn't allow them to play," said Nicanor.

PnB organizers are expecting 46 more cities and municipalities to send their list of athletes and officials which Nicanor estimated to number about 3,000 to 4,000.

To date, Nicanor disclosed that about 5,000 athletes and coaches from 72 cities and municipalities have signified their intentions of joining after registering early in January this year.

However, he was wary on the non-compliance by Regions III and IV to a memorandum sent by Education secretary Andrew Gonzalez to regional directors to re-schedule their regional qualifiers for the 2000 Palarong Pambansa to give way for the PnB.

These regions are included in the 46 still unlisted and, according to Nicanor, are still pushing through with their own elims which will hit the PnB schedule directly because they are holding theirs on Feb. 27 to March 4.

"I'm surprised why they are disobeying orders from Secretary Gonzalez to re-schedule their regional eliminations to give way to the PnB,"said Nicanor.