What’s new in this year’s Palarong Pambansa

Czarina L. Gomez

The country’s premier national sporting event, the Palarong Pambansa, will introduce two side events this year — Larong Pinoy and the Sports Her oes Day.

Larong Pinoy, also known as the Philippine Indigenous Games, aims to strengthen and revive the traditional Pinoy games such as toktok palayok, kadang-kadang, patintero, hilahang lubid, andkarera ng sako.

It is primarily intended to revive “Laro ng Lahi” sports amidst the advent of technology which include electronic and video-based games played by the youth on computers, tablets and mobile phones.

The players however, will not be the youth, but DepEd’s undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, regional as well as assistant directors and division and assistant division superintendents, DepEd Executive Committee members, DepEd Sports Officials, local government unit (LGU) representatives, sports icons, among others.

The Sports Heroes Day, on the other hand, is an important opportunity for young athletes to personally interact with their sports idols and icons.

Anchored on the theme “Shaping the Future Through Sports,” the 2019 Palarong Pambansa is set from April 27 to May 4. Davao City will host this year’s sporting event.

The official regular sports in the elementary and secondary level, as provided in Section 27 of Rule VI of the IRR of RA 10588, shall remain to be played while dancesports, pencak silat, and aerobics gymnastics shall remain this year’s demonstration sports.

There shall be separate events for student-athletes with disability to compete such as athletics, swimming, bocce, and goal ball. Medals shall be awarded to the winners of the said special games.

All sports shall be played in accordance with the current international rules and regulations being implemented by its respective international federation. However, modifications, amendments, or revisions in the technical rules and regulations may be allowed for justifiable or compelling reasons. The tournament manager of the concerned sports shall draft the proposed changes to be submitted to the head of the technical committee for review and evaluation, and to be endorsed to the Palarong Pambansa Secretary-General for final appr oval .

Relative to the foregoing provisions, technical rules, regulations, and guidelines of respective sports adopted during the 2018 Palarong Pambansa shall remain in effect except for the following sports: athletics, swimming gymnastics, amis, dancesports, wushu, wrestling, and aerobic gymnastics for having changes in its technical requirement.

For Athletics, the events to be played in the 2019 Palarong Pambansa shall be the same events being contested in the ASEAN Schools Games (ASG); Swimming - Similarly, all the swimming events in the ASG shall be played in the 2019 Palarong Pambansa; Gymnastics - The 2017-2020 Code of Points shall be adopted in the 2019 Palarong Pambansa; and Amis - Adoption of PEKAF Rules pursuant to the Palarong Pambansa.

Team competition events such as basketball, baseball, football, sepak takraw (team event), softball, and volleyball shall adopt the tournament format gui del i nes.

The Olympic Medal System shall be applied to determine the overall champion and rankings. Hence, ranking shall be based on the total number of gold, silver, and bronze medals to be contested in the different sports events.

Medals awarded in the demonstration sports shall not be included in the medal count earned by the regional delegation.

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The author is Teacher III at Calulut Integrated School