Article By: Ed Andaya | SOURCE https://tinyurl.com/sourceJournalNews
“We have this gift of seeing things on a different point of view. Sports to me is like a product. Anong produkto natin? Mga atletang magagaling at nananalo. But as a businessman, the challenge is kung paano tayo mag-produce ng magandang produkto,” explained Hayco, also known as the “Father of Dancesports” in Cebu City..
WITH no less than President Marcos giving his unequivocal support, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) will continue to pursue an aggressive grassroots sports development program aimed at producing more world-class Filipino athletes.
Newly-appointed PSC Commissioner Edward Hayco believes it can be done.
And Hayco, a well-known businessman-entrepreneur from Cebu who was appointed to the government sports body by President Marcos only last December, said the PSC needs only to replicate the sports program of Cebu and Baguio to achieve its goal.
“We did it in Cebu. They did it in Baguio. We only have to replicate the success of these two sports-oriented cities and make it work nationwide,” said Hayco in an interview with “Sports on Air” recently.
“As a PSC commissioner, I will be focusing on public schools which is similar to our programs when I was the Cebu City Sports Commision chairman,” claimed Hayco.
“After all, the least privileged athletes are from public schools. Hopefully, I can convince PSC to focus on public schools through a grassroots program,” added Hayco.
Hayco now 64, hopes to contribute to the success of Philipppine sports by using his God-given talent in business and entrepreneurship and devoting more time for sports development.
“I am actually a businessman and entrepreneur that creates products. A businessman markets the product and makes it into a business,“said Hayco, who previously served as head of the Cebu City Sports Commission.
“We have this gift of seeing things on a different point of view. Sports to me is like a product. Anong produkto natin? Mga atletang magagaling at nananalo. But as a businessman, the challenge is kung paano tayo mag-produce ng magandang produkto,” explained Hayco, also known as the “Father of Dancesports” in Cebu City..
“Sa sports, we don’t produce good athletes na parang nagpupulot ka lang ng kahit sino sa forest. We have to farm, Parang cornfield. We don’t look for a corn in a forest. We farmed to harvest the best corn possible.”
“That’s the concept of grassroots program. Ginawa namin ang grassroots program sa Cebu using business concepts. A grassroots program is not a tournament or competition. It is what happens before it. Sa Cebu, yung grassroots program natin doesn’t start with event. We do have the monthly event na Cebu City Junior Olympics. But the kids that we put into it started into the intrams level.”
Hayco stressed that the Cebu Sports Commission worked in tandem with the Depatment of Education (Deped).
“In Cebu City alone, we have more than 30,000-40,000 kids start from intrams. Kalahati aakyat sa division meet, kaya magiging 20,000.
Tapos aakyat sa unit meet ang 10,000, aakyat sa city meet ang 5,000, tapos aakyat sa CVIRAA or regional meet yun 3,000. Aakyat pa kung sinong mananalo sa CVIRAA papuntang Palarong Pambansa.That’s maybe 1,000.”
“So what happens to the 29,000 is the grassroots program. We prepare them from the intrams level, we train the kids. In Cebu, we have around 10,000 kids under the program, we have 60 kids that we fund out of 30-40 public schools. That’s the program in Cebu, which we now want to be replicated as much as possible in all the LGUs in the Philippines.”
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