Recognizing women in sports
THE regular Monday flag ceremony at the Philippine Sports Commission(PSC) was a bit more colorful than usual.
Reason, the month of March, aside from it being birthday month, is Women’s Month and PSC Commissioner Bong Coo is in charge of the agency’s women in sports program, supported by the Philippine Commission on Women, and she has laid down a full calendar of activities to celebrate this month.
For a starter, last Monday, a group of young female wushu athletes performed before the PSC employees gathered with another sport scheduled to showcase its discipline another time this month.
From the flag ceremony, I went up and requested Comm. Bong for a short one on one in her office on her other plans this month and beyond.
The highlight event will be the second staging of her annual Women’s Awards for female sports figures in different roles scheduled March 15, actually one award and one citation for the awardees, including post humous recognition.
Majority of the more than 130 awardees are athletes , from junior to female elite athletes who did well last year, the rest are sports officials and executives from different NSAd.
In fact there are awardees coming from as far as Mindanao.
Among the categories are Lifetime awards, Sports Executives, community sports awardees, Flane awardees, and special citations.
March 21 will be a full day as there will be a seminar on the Magna Carta on Women with speakers from the Philippibe Commission on Women at the RMSC for PSC fenale employees, to be followed by fun teambuilding activities and the awarding of the photo contest for all PSC employees on the subject of empowered women.
On March 23 to 28, Dr. Masa Ito from Seijo University in Japan will conduct a female coaches workshop for only 12 selected mentors in different sports.
Up to the last day of the month, Comm. Bong’s team is working on a possible sports event for diffrently-abled women.
Other activities she has lined up for the year includes a Women Sports Festival which this year will cater to women 18 years old and below with the objective of discovering new talents in 10 different sports.
Then a follow through seminar on SafeSports which debuted last year but this time for LGU representatives unlike last year when participants came ftom NSAs.
Comm. COo is also supporting a Women’s Summit by Dinah Go in Cebu.
It seems it is not just a full month but a full year for activities for Women in Sports.
We also talked about Comm. Bong’s favorite sport, ten pin bowling , where she made her mark in sports as a world champion.
In fact people would remember her more from those days when she was the toast of international women’s bowling than her being a PSC Commissioner.
She rues the fact that we lack bowling centers that can expand the base of bowlers within and outside Metro Manila.
One problem actually is that our batiobal bowlers do not have a place to practice since October last year when Starmall-Edsa closed shop.
She has been sounding out local government people in the provinces, encouraging them to put up bowling centers in their cities, thankful that MILO is launching its own bowling grassroots program.
There is an approved plan for the PSC to build its own modern bowling center for our national athletes but that is still far off.
Which is why she expressed concern about our chances at the forthcoming SEA Games in Thailand later this year.
