By Pigeon M. Lobien
BAGUIO
CITY – Baguio and Cordillera athletes who excelled in international
competitions this year will be feted in the Kafagway/Kordillera International
Sports Luminary Awards Podium (Kislap) on Dec. 30.
It
will be the first time too that it will be held without the man who started it
some 40 years ago, Narciso Padilla, who died last March 3.
“All his program that he started 46 years ago will
continue,” said son Fritz Gerald, who took over the running of the eight-event,
month-long Silahis ng Pasko (SnP) program that includes the Kislap awards.
The 19 athletes who won gold medals in the last Southeast
Asian Games (SEAG) earlier this month will lead the parade of awardees.
Double gold and silver winner Stephanie Sabalo will be one
of the main awardees along with world International Boxing Association (AIBA)
champion Nesthy Petecio, who has called Baguio her home in the past 14 years.
Petecio is a student at the University of Baguio (UB) where she is taking up
Hotel Tourism Management.
Sabalo
is a former member of the Saint Louis University (SLU) theater, who is Baguio’s
most bemedalled athlete winning two gold medals and a silver in dancesport with
partner Michael Angelo Marquez in the SEAG.
The win entitles her to the Athlete of the Year (AoY) –
Break Out, said the younger Padilla.
Petecio did not only win gold in the last SEAG but was also
crowned a world champion during the AIBA last October. Aside from them, top
awardees will include taekwondo poomsae athlete Jeordan Dominguez who won the
freestyle competition of poomsae in the SEAG and a bronze medal winner in the
World Taekwondo Poomsae Grand Prix last June.
Also on the top list is Divine Wally, winner of the
48-kilogram division of wushu sanda despite nursing an injury.
She is also a bronze medalist in the World Wushu
Championship last October, the same event she won in 2017.
One of the bigger stories in Baguio/Cordillera sports is
that of 37-year-old Jearome Calica who joined and won a gold in the SEAG 18
years after his first and last.
The then 19-year-old won a gold medal in wushu-sanda along
with Team Lakay great Mark Sangiao, who took a gold also, and the then 18-year
old Eduard Folayang, who came home empty-handed.
Calica
will receive the AoY – Comeback Award.
Then there is Jean Claude Saclag who was a silver medalist
in the 2014 Asian Games in wushu sanda but has since then left the Philippine
Wushu Federation.
Last March, he won gold in the National Kickboxing
competition in Tagaytay City which was his ticket to the kickboxing national
team and the 30th SEAG.
The athlete named after the movie great Jean Claude Van Damme
will get the AoY – Big Shift award.
UB
alumni Estie Gay Liwanen will be one of the Golden Awardees as the Ifugao
fighter was among the first Cordilleran to win a gold in kurash.
Other awardees include Ariel Ray Lampacan (muay Thai),
Sandi Menchi Abahan (obstacle course race), Abegail Abad and Elmer Manlapas in
arnis, Brian Kurt Barbosa (taekwondo), Jason Baucas (wrestling), Jerry Olsim
and Gina Iniong in kickboxing, Mark Eduard Striegl in sambo and Kenneth Jiane
Villa in e-sports.
UB’s Josie Gabuco, who won the country’s first AIBA title
in 2012 and gold in the Asian Championships recently in Bangkok, and Carlo
Paalam, winner of gold medals in the last SEAG, are also in the list.
Gabuco has also won the gold medal in the SEAG on four
other occasions: Vientiane in 2009, 2011 in Jakarta, 2013 in Naypyidaw,
Thailand and 2015 in Singapore.
The silver awardees will include Jones Inso in wushu taolu,
Gideon Fred Padua (wushu sanda), Rusha Mae Bayacsan in muay Thai waikru and
taksa, Jenelyn Olsim and Islay Erica Bomogao in muay Thai, Jason Balabal in
wrestling, Renaly Dacquel and Jomar Balangui in kickboxing, Billy Joel
Valenzuela in arnis, Minalyn Foy-os in wrestling and Irish Magno in boxing.
The bronze awardees include Thornton Lou Sayan and Daniel
Parantac in wushu taolu, Ezarai Yalong in arnis, Alexis Mayag-as in muay Thai,
Helen Dawa in kurash, Helen Aclopen, Jedd Andre Diño Kim and Marianne Mariano
in sambo, Karol Maguide in kickboxing and Aira Villegas in boxing.
Special awards will be given to Billy Alumno as coach of
the year, UB as the school of the year for having the most athlete to the SEAG,
UB’s men’s basketball team and University of the Cordillera (UC) Lady Jaguars
in women’s basketball.
The special Master awards will be given to the 67-year old Erlinda
Lavandia who won a gold in the Kuching, Malaysia Masters Athletics tournament
where the 40-something Christabel Martes won two golds – 10,000 and 5,000 meter
runs – and two bronze medals.
The SnP is an annual project started by the late Padilla, a
former city councilor and tourism officer and camp director to Michael Keon in
the Gintong Alay Project.
Silahis is to provide hope or giving something to those
with less in life and started last December 1 with the Children’s Mardi Gras,
the December 7-8 Lucky Christmas Family, the December 15 Special Olympics for
Special People (blind), the December 22 Share a Joy with indigent sick
children, the December 25 Lucky Christmas Baby, the KISLAP and TALA (for senior
citizens) on December 30 and the January 1 (2020) Lucky New year Baby.
It is held in coordination with the Baguio City Social
Welfare Development Office as well as benefactors that turn Santa Claus to the
events like the Larry Puckett Greenwater Foundation, the Saint Louis Boys High
School Class of 1986, Axa SunStar, the Feast Baguio, Benguet Electric
Cooperative, Baguio Rep. Marques and Mrs. Soledad Go, Porta Vaga Mall and
Baguio Center Mall. -- PNA
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