Dagupan City Over-All Champ at R1AA

She Beat ‘Em All!

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – The small but well-funded and dexterously - trained delegation of this City showed to their bigger rivals in the Region-1 Athletic Association  recently held in Alaminos City who was the boss in snaring more gold medals.

“Despite against all odds we won,” Mayor Belen T. Fernandez told this paper in a text message on the prowess of the high school students here who would be joining the Palarong Pambansa (National Game) in Vigan City this coming April 16 to 20.

“Up to know hindi pa binigay sa akin pero you use the count of Dagupan City Sports Commission,” she cited on the number of gold medals won by the richest city in the four provinces and nine cities’ Region-1.

As based on the DCSC's official record the final score for this burgeoning city was 71 gold, 51 silver, and 34 bronze medals.

“From 50 plus gold medals last year to a whopping 70 plus gold medals this time around. Balon Dagupan is the No. 1 over-all Best Performance Delegation and Champion city for the first time in R1AA history beating Vigan, Alaminos, Pangasinan 1 and 2, Batac, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Urdaneta and San Carlos City”, DCSC Co- Commissioner Nestor Duque said.

In the last year’s event, this City was breathing dangerously at the back of the neck of the champion Pangasinan II only short by five gold medals.

In 2016, she placed second best in the overall game for the first time with 44 gold, 38 silver, and 38 bronze medals after it was reinvigorated by Mayor Fernandez and DCSC Sports Commissioner Finnela Sim from the cellar as previous mayors here did not prioritize the sports unlike Fernandez who had zealously pursued what glory it could bring to Dagupenos.

Meanwhile, some sport stakeholders who asked anonymity had numbers of complaints of the fumbling of the games rules by the Department of Education – Region-1 headed by Sports Coordinator Edilberto Abalos.

They cited the following: The DepEd was not clear on the rules of the scaling of weights of the athletes where the sports brass changed the rules few days before the staging of the game.  They cited the delegates were told to return to the rules in 2017 as the 2018 rules, where the delegates prepared, were not approved by the leadership of the DepEd.

They changed the championship score by basing it on the points designated to gold, silver, and bronze instead of the most number of gold medals amassed as customarily used in the country.
In that new point - system the scoring were five, three, and one points for gold, silver, and bronze, respectively.

“This new policy prejudiced smaller cities like the cities of Alaminos,Batac, Candon, Dagupan and Vigan,” one of the complainants dished out.

The source said the point tally system was approved by almost all superintendents of the School Division Offices two days before the game.

 “Most of them did not understand the tally methods. It should be the sports coordinators of the various school divisions who should attend and vote at the meeting of the DepEd,” one of the sources said.

The other one said this policy of point system was done in Region 1 alone and not in other Regions.

The other grievances of these sports spectators were the lack of transparency by the DepEd on the tally like how many gold medals have been won by the respective delegates as the five days game ensued and the lack of updates from the technical management of the education regional office.