Baguio City—Sixteen athletes and two coaches/promoters will be honored during the Kafagway/Kordillera International Sportsman Luminary Award Podium on Dec. 29 at the Sunshine Park here.
Mixed martial artists and Team Lakay champions Kevin Belingon, Stephen Loman, Joshua Pacio, Geje Eustaquio and Eduard Folayang, as well as Mark Sangiao, will banner the morning show that will come after the outstanding senior citizens from different sectors are honored.
Belingon is the ONE Championship bantamweight king after he beat one of ONE’s greatest champions in Bibiano Hernandez.
Loman is the Brave Combat Federation bantamweight king, who last defended his crown last Nov. 16 at the Khalifa Sports City against a dangerous Felipe Efrain despite being the underdog.
Pacio, the youngest member of Team Lakay, put on a display to score a unanimous decision win over Yoshitaka Naito last Sept. 22 in Jakarta to secure the straw weight crown.
Eustaquio started the Lakay rampage in the ONE Championship with a split decision win over legend Adriano Moraes on June 23 to avenge a loss four years ago.
Folayang became a king for the second time when he decided Amir Khan last Nov. 25 for the vacant lightweight title after he was named fighter of the year by the same organization.
Team Lakay is led by Sangiao, who is a gold medalist in the 2001 South East Asian Games, where a 19-year-old Folayang debuted.
Asian Games’ bronze medalists Divine Wally, Carlo Paalam and Jeordan Dominguez will also get recognition in the event organized by the National Correspondent Club of Baguio and eponymous Publication and Media Works and backed by the Larry Puckett Green Meadows Foundation.
Wally, the wushu sanda heir of Folayang and Sangiao, and is cousin to the former and inspiration, took the bronze also in the world cup of sanda last Oct. 31.
Paalam is a senior high University of Baguio student, who is one of the three medalists in the Asian Games last August.
Dominguez was one of the three who performed to a third-place finish in taekwondo poomsae. He later won the same medal in the Taiwan hosted World Pomsae Championship last month. Earlier this year, he won a silver in the Korean Open.
Daniel Parantac, Jones Inso and Thornton Lou Sayan won a gold each in the Traditional Wushu Championship in Nanjing, China late October. Parantac took a bronze, while Inso had another silver in the same competition.
Another awardee is Brico Santig, who owns the Highland Boxing Promotions, which has gyms in La Trinidad, Benguet and Bangkik, Thailand, where he raises a family, too. He promotes Orient Pacific Boxing Federation Silver winner Jelbirt Gomera, OPBF champion Carlo Magali, KK Natuplag (World Boxing League Asia champion), JayR Raquinel (OPBF champion) and Michael Zulueta (Asian Boxing Federation minimum weight champion).
The five boxers will be similarly feted.
Special citations by e-Pub will be given to the University of Baguio Cardinals as a returning Baguio-Benguet Educational Athletic League champion after two years of absence. A similar trophy will be given to the UB Lady Jaguars for winning their fourth straight basketball crown.
The Cordillera Volleyball Development League for Elementary and Secondary Schools under Cordillera Volleyball Association president Danilo Edwardo will be cited as a grassroot development program which he started seven years ago.