Ildefonso leads PSA major awardees

Danny Ildefonso, the pro-league’s most imposing player during the year, joins an elite cast of sports greats who will be honored by the Philippine Sportswriters Association during its traditional PSA Annual Awards Jan. 11 at the Holiday Inn Manila.

Ildefonso was the unanimous choice as the best in professional basketball in 2001 after he won his second PBA Most Valuable Player award aside from copping three conference titles in the season.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been invited to be the guest of honor and speaker during the Awards Night of the country’s oldest news organization.

The Awards Night is sponsored by Photokina Marketing and supported by the Philippine Sports Commission.

The President will confer the Most Outstanding Athlete awards to world billiards champion Efren "Bata" Reyes and Fil-American golfer Dorothy Joy Delasin as well as to Ildefonso and other winners of the PSA’s Major Awards.

Other major awardees initially voted by the PSA during its board of directors’ meeting are Manny Pacquiao (pro boxing), Eduardo Buenavista (athletics), Liza del Rosario (bowling), Wind Blown (horse of the year) and Roberto Cruz (taekwondo).

The PSA is still deliberating on the nominees for other major awards.

Pacquiao, 22, was unbeaten in four fights this year. He stopped Lehlo Ledwaba to wrest the IBF 122-pound crown in Las Vegas in June and drew with rule-breaker Agapito Sanchez of the Dominican Republic in a title defense in November.

In only his second year in the Southeast Asian Games, Buenavista, 22, shocked the opposition by winning the 3,000 meter steeplechase and the 5,000m run to become the only Filipino double gold medalist in the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.

Del Rosario, who won the doubles gold in bowling in partnership with Arianne Cerdeña in the KL SEAG, reached the finals of the prestigious World Cup of bowling in Patthaya, Thailand.

Wind Blown won the year’s major stakes races — Chairman’s Cup, First Gentleman’s Cup, Founders’ Cup, Gran Copa, Philracom Open and the season-ending Presidential Gold Cup — to earn local horseracing’s honor as horse of the year.

Competing in the finweight division in taekwondo, Cruz posted a rare record in Philippine sports by winning the SEA Games gold in his category in Kuala Lumpur. It was his sixth straight since the 1991 SEA Games in Manila.

PSA president Lito A. Tacujan of The STAR said that invitations to the affair will be distributed shortly. Those unable to receive their invitations may claim them at the reception during the awards night.