Sports Eye
Requiem for SK?
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
THE speculations about the fate of the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) are finally over. President Aquino just signed the bill last October 3 amending RA 9340 postponing the SK elections, and resetting it to between October 28, 2014 and February 23, 2015. The new SK law (RA 10632) also says the current SK officials will not retain their positions in a holdover capacity and their term will definitely end on November 30 this year.
Yes, there have been calls to reform or even abolish the SK. In fact there are pending bills in Congress not only to postpone the SK elections but even to abolish it for good because they believe that the youth council is becoming the breeding ground or the school of corruption. Political analysts also say that most of the SK leaders (now unlike before) are being used by the politicians especially during election time. But for the time being, our lawmakers have decided to just postpone it to have enough time to study the loopholes and pave the way for the reforms that our young people need.
As expected our youth leaders cry ‘foul’ immediately upon learning that their representation in the government was withdrawn. They say the new law is unjust and undemocratic. Sports fanatics say that without SK there will be no more youth sports competition in every village and sports and youth development in the country is now in doldrums. They have basis for saying that because most of our national athletes today that won some international medals were originally discovered from the SB sports competitions and eventually developed when they reached college. SK was known as KB (Kabataang Barangay) before, during the period of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and it was Marcos’ daughter Imee who was national chair during the martial law era.
Let me stress, especially to you young readers, that there was no KB or SK before but our country produced Olympic medalists and the highest medal that we reached was a silver compliment of boxer Anthony Villanueva in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. During my cycling heydays (60’s and early 70’s), there was no KB or SK yet at that time and nobody discovered me, developed me to be a good cyclist except myself. Being a son out of wedlock and experienced strong discrimination and prejudice during my youth, I was discriminated against many times by my detractors saying that I’m just a thin and patsy rider, a bastard son with no chance at all to win any big race. But they were wrong and I made them eat their words. In the end I proved to my detractors that an illegitimate child is no different from a legitimate child. I’m glad and proud to say that what I accomplished they did not achieve. It was all a case of motivation, assiduousness, discipline and experience that catapulted me to the top. This is the proof that even without SK there’s still a big and wide room for improvement.
But let me also clarify that I’m not in favor of abolishing the SK because in this generation SK plays a major role in discovering young and potential talents. Abolishing SK would be like depriving the youths of opportunities to grow. Postponing the SK polls to introduce reforms is good because it will allow us one year to observe the impact of this postponement. What I am certain of is sports activities in the whole archipelago will be greatly affected.
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Congrats again to the LNU Dukes for beating the visiting Conde’s Cake Lab basketball team of Rosales, (93-84) last October 9 at the Salvador Duque Fieldhouse at Tapuac, Dagupan City. I watched the game and saw how the goodwill game turned into a very physical match. It was the first tune-up tiff for the Tapuac-based Dukes before sojourning to Vigan City on November 9 to face tougher opponents like the host team, University of Baguio and either Lyceum of Subic Bay or Angeles University Foundation. The winning team will represent northern Luzon in the Philippine Colleges Champions League (PCCL) tourney scheduled to start at the end of next month. Good luck to you guys and bring home the northern Luzon tiara.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: And Jesus Christ said “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” JOHN 6: 38-40
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