Another milestone for GenVel

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

PANGASINAN sports lovers, especially in the field of basketball, are aware that the town of Sta. Barbara is a producer of sports celebrities.

PBA’s Marlou Aquino and Christian Calaguio are the current luminaries from that town.

Well, if you consider body-building a sport, the first sports celebrity that this place produced was Herminigildo Tigno, the 1961 Mr. Philippines.

Correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I can remember, the macho and mucho guwapito Tigno landed in the top five (I believe he bagged the first runner-up plum) during the 1961 Mr. Universe Body Building Contest. That’s a great achievement by the town as well as our province Pangasinan.

Basketball is undoubtedly the favorite sport of Sta. Barbara folks.

This is the reason why the sports-minded Mayor Reynaldo V. Velasco organized this year an inter-barangay basketball tournament that already started last September 15.

According to Ike de Guzman, the town’s sports consultant who was asked to handle the affair, the cagefest dubbed as the “Mayor’s Cup 2007 Inter-Barangay Basketball Tournament” is for the town’s youth, 20 years old and below.

Eighteen out of 29 barangays are participating and divided into two brackets led by defending champion Poblacion Norte, Maticmatic, Poblacion Sur, Banaoang, Tuliao, Patayac, Ventinilla, Maningding and Banzal in bracket B.

Bracket A is composed of barangays Sapang, Leet, Maronong,Gueguesangen, Malanay, Sonquil, Tebag West, Dalongue and Carusucan.

De Guzman also said hostilities are being held every Saturday and Sunday and is expected to last up to November 24.

The theme of the tourney is “Sports Ay Bigyang Halaga, Ating Labanan Bawal Na Droga”.

Cash prizes for the top three winners and trophies for the top four finishers are up for grabs aside from the MVP, Mythical Five, Best in Uniform, Best Float and Muse of the Tournament awards.

De Guzman also said 40 players according to their performances will be selected to undergo a basketball clinic to be conducted by well-known RP national coach Chot Reyes, a close and good friend of hizzoner Velasco.

Then eventually five out of the 40 will be given free college scholarships and at the same time play basketball at whatever school they enter, which would most likely be Ateneo de Manila University.

I know that the good and hard-working town’s chief executive Velasco is encountering some big problems for the development of his municipality, especially the flood prone barangays.

But despite that, the sports-buff mayor never forgets to include the development of sports as one of his important projects believing that sports activities are one of the best if not the main  ways to curb or at least minimize the drug menace that’s affecting the country’s  youth today.

Not just basketball but a cycling event, which is also one of his favorite sports, is forthcoming and I believe it will be held on the second day of December this year in conjunction with the celebration of the town fiesta.

I will be reporting on the details of this race in the coming weeks.

Mabuhay ka Mayor and keep up the good work!

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/sports-eye/)