Before I start, allow me first to greet a blessed birthday to a dear friend, Attorney Guillermo B. Iroy Jr.
We rarely have in our company lawyers who were former national athletes and Attorney Iroy is one of a few whom we had the pleasure of working with in the Davao sports community.
He has a long list of accomplishments and despite of that, he has been a shining example of what humility is, and to us sportswriters who sometimes can be hambugero, once we see Attorney Iroy, we simply just go back to our proper places.
To a dear friend of the Davao and Philippine sports communities, cheers to a healthy and long life Attorney Dodong Iroy, formerly with the Sports Development Division-Davao City Mayor’s Office and currently with the Philippine Sports Commission.
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Now let’s go back to business.
Sports development management as we have been taught is one of the noble vocations you can find.
Madato ba ka diha? Pwede. But Attorney Iroy, being a lawyer and a dear friend, has been a great advisor on many things including being careful with the opportunities that sports development management can provide.
You can hear and read from time to time on how some sports executives can commit mistakes and I solely blame that to human weakness. Ma tintal ba. If our fear of the Almighty Father is not that intense, ah dili gyud mahadlok manghilabot ug dili para nimo.
So, how do we look at 2025?
While we regularly receive awesome sports news releases, we have not received any major sports development breakthrough in 2024.
The sports for peace in Mindanao movement has been silent, there are no major sports infrastructure projects that we have heard of and there are no major pronouncements on how we can produce another Hidilyn Diaz and Carlos Yulo in the next Olympics.
Mingaw.
I believe this is the effect of the saddening squabbles between our two highest political leaders in the land.
Sports executives are on a wait-and-see situation because anything can just happen, given the current situation.
Samok.
Our only wish that the leadership crisis can soon be resolved because there are a lot of things to be done in sports development. Sure, the tournaments and games are ongoing, but the major plan to have Olympic-caliber athletes who have high chances of winning medals for our country has not really been moving.
Mingaw tungod sa samok, yes.
Political stability is needed for sports development to thrive further.
Go check the publicly-funded sports facilities all over, bibo ba? If not for the Department of Human Kinetics attached to sports complexes, we can see another white elephant. Multi-million peso sports facility should be used on a daily basis by Filipinos of all ages. Asa naman ang genuine sports development program?
So, we have sports coordinators in Davao City from City Hall and the Philippine Sports Commission, and are they even talking to plan things?
Or we always just leave it to our non-salaried Davao City Sports Council Inc. headed by Dexter So, to do the volunteer work?
We are supposed to make things easy for them, dili pa lisod lisoron.
Year 2024 has been great, thanks to the Carlos Yulo, now the question is what is in store for 2025?
Happy Holidays to all!
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Comments can be emailed to mpb_sports@yahoo.com.
