ZAMBOANGA CITY—Navy cadet Jenny Manongsong, Air Force cadet Jenny Rose Ibanez and Army’s Jessa Corpus anchored their respective teams to victory in the 4×400-m relay and secured their fourth golds on Friday at the end of the athletic competition in the ROTC Games Mindanao leg at the Joaquin F. Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex here.
Manongsong of the Zamboanga Peninsula Polytechnic State University led his team with a time of 6:03, while Ibanez and her group finished 5:4.02 and Corpus of Tangub City Global College clocked 4:35.2.
All three teams participated in separate competitions for their respective branch of services of their school.
Airman John Barry Asdani and his group of Western Mindanao State University students could only finish with the silver in the same 4×400-m event. But Asdani remained the most bemedalled athlete in medal-rich athletics with four golds and a silver.
Each of the three services of the Armed Forces — Philippine Navy, Philippine Air Force and Philippine Army brought home similar 15 golds, silvers and bronze medals apiece in athletics, a good sign of improvements from last year, which was dominated by the Army.
In boxing at the Western Mindanao State University gymnasium, the Army fielded the most number of entries that it garnered four gold medals, while only one went to the Air Force and none from the Navy.
Armyman Rolando Evangelista of Jose Rizal Memorial State University-Tampilisan easily won over Christopher Medina of Makilala Institute of Science and Technology, 5-0, in the bantamweight class, while John Rey Apale of Makilala Institute of Science and Technology won over Ian Jeffer Banyogan of PHINMA, CDO, 4-1, in the featherweight finals.
Also advancing to the national finals were Joebert Yacacapin of PHINMA-CDO over Rogelio Cordero Jr. of Sibugay Technical Institute, 5-0, in the lightweight division, and Wilmark Agosto of La Salle University after winning over John Loid Lorenzo of MIST, 5-0, in the light welterweight finals.