PNG athletes receive prizes/Curbing kids’ gadget addiction

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Seventy one athletes and coaches instrumental in the city’s second-place finish in the 2018 Philippine National Games received their additional cash incentives last week.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan and City Sports and Recreation Division head Gaudencio Gonzales handed over the monetary reward amounting to P10,000 for gold, P5,000 for silver and P3,000 for bronze medalists.

He thanked the athletes for giving honor to the city and encouraged them to continue striving and realizing the benefits of sports activities. 

Gonzales said the additional incentive that totaled P1.157 million doubled the amount of cash rewards received by the athletes.

The regular incentive mandated by a city ordinance was released last year.

The additional incentive came from the P8 million cash prize given to PNG winners by the Philippine Sports Commission as part of its grassroots sports promotion. 

The grant of the extra benefits to the athletes was decided in a resolution approved by the City Sports Program Development Council which the mayor heads.

Domogan said the rest of the amount will be used to procure sports equipment and materials for use of the athletes in their trainings. 

The Philippine National Games (PNG) officially known as the POC-PSC Games is a national multi-sport tournament in the Philippines to select the national pool athletes who will compete in international tournaments such as the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games and the Olympics. 

The 2018 PNG was held in May 19-25 co-hosted by the City of Cebu and the Province of Cebu.

Meanwhile, Batang Pinoy athletes will also receive their additional cash reward soon from the P3 million prize for topping the finals held last year in the city.

Unlike the PNG, the incentive will amount to P3,000 for the gold, P2,000 for the silver and P1,000 for the bronze medalists.

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Baguio barangays should identify and designate an area exclusively for multi-purpose community playgrounds and adopt programs promoting traditional games.

The city council approved Resolution No. 48 series of 2019 authored by Councilor Leandro Yangot Jr. for this purpose.

Yangot said the city has to address “grave concern on the harmful effects of excessive use of electronic devices by children.” 

He cited the report of the We Are Social and the Hootsuite which showed that for the third year in a row, the Philippines as of January 2018 emerged as the country that spent the most time on social media, with an average user spending almost 4 hours daily on different platforms.

Another research, he said, showed that touch screen devices have taken over all other forms of playful delight for kids. 

“Sixty percent (60%) of parents with kids under the age of twelve reported that their child plays on a portable screen often, while thirty eight percent (38%) apparently play very often. It is not just the number of children using the internet that has increased. The amount of time that children spend on the internet has also gone up over the past 12 months,” he said.

“Excessive use of electronic gadgets/digital technology by children can cause addiction thereby harming their cognitive, emotional and social development. In a December 2018 study, children spending more than 7 hours a day using said gadgets show signs of premature thinning of the cortex, the brain’s outermost layer that processes sensory information. In addition, children who spend more than two hours a day on said gadgets score worse on language and reasoning tests.”

He said that to encourage children to be more involved in social activities, “appropriate programs, projects and activities must be adopted and that a community park or playground must be provided to give the children an opportunity to interact with peers by playing traditional games, among others.”

“By giving the children a designated space for outdoor recreation, they will be able to improve their social skills, create new friendships, promote their health and well-being and eliminate the excessive usage of computers, mobile phones, smartphones and other related devices,” Yangot said.