CESAFI welcomes vaccination campaign for student-athletes
League lays down plan for virtual events next semester
The coronavirus vaccination rolled out by the Philippine government for studentathletes is a welcome development for the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI), according to league commissioner Felix “Boy” O. Tiukinhoy, Jr.
Last Wednesday, the “It’s truly a government kicked off its welcome development student-athlete inoculations for the CESAFI,” said starting with the member Tiukinhoy.”Personally, I am schools of the University an advocate of “no vaccine, Athletic Association of the no play” policy once the Philippines (UAAP) based situation gets back to normal in Manila. in the future.”
This is a major step Like other leagues. all towards the much desired the CESAFI activities have resumption of face-to-face been put to a halt by the training and ultimately faceto-face global pandemic for over a events for schoolbased year now. sports leagues in the But with this vaccination country next year. effort for student-athletes,
Tiukinhoy is full of hope that the CESAFI could stage a comeback season in 2022.
“That is something that I really look forward to,” said
Tiukinhoy. “At the moment, getting the students and the rest of education stakeholder protected against Covid-19 is the kind of direction every school wants to take. By having everyone vaccinated, that would lead to the return of faceto-face classes and eventually face-to-face competitions we are longing for. We will just keep our fingers crossed for better days ahead.”
For the time being though, Tiukinhoy said the least they can do for the athletes is to hold online tournaments, which they are cooking up right now for the CESAFI next semester.
“Actually, we already had initial talks with the different athletic directors about staging CESAFI online events next semester such as chess, taekwondo and weightlifting among others. We will try to finalize everything by January so that we can start it most probably by April,” Tiukinhoy concluded.