Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richard Bachmann recognized the growing number of sports and participants in the Philippine ROTC Games.
He attended Wednesday’s action of the tournament’s Mindanao leg, witnessing eight sports namely arnis, boxing, and kickboxing, including debuting disciplines from 5v5 basketball, swimming, sepak takraw, target shooting, and raiders’ competition.
“The increase in the number of sports in the ROTC Games means a larger platform for our athletes to showcase their talents and, at the same time, expands our pool for talent identification in line with our mandate to uplift the country’s grassroots sports,” Chairman Bachmann stated.
The participants in this year’s Mindanao leg already were raised to around 2,000 athletes, from last year’s 1,300.
The number of sports also increased to 15 from only seven on its inaugural staging last year.
Among the sports played in this year are athletics, e-sports, taekwondo, table tennis, volleyball and chess.
The head of the sports agency extended his appreciation to the brainchild of the tournament Sen. Francis Tolentino for committing to expand the platform aimed to instill the discipline and enthusiasm of cadets from numerous universities and colleges nationwide.
“We thank Sen. Tolentino, not just for engineering this tournament, but of course in making serious efforts to hold this consistently for the sake of Philippine sports,” Bachmann said.
“I also thank Mayor John Dalipe for hosting the ROTC Games again here in Zamboanga City,” he added.
In partnership with the Department of National Defense and Commission on Higher Education, the Philippine ROTC Games is now on its second leg, with the Visayas edition taking place in Bacolod City last month.
Indang, Cavite will host the Luzon leg and the National Championships in July and August.