Philippine Sports News and Updates

President Arroyo has declare Games open in a festive ceremony set at 7:30 am at the newly-refurbished Leyte Sports Development Center.

"Mrs. Arroyo is expected to call on the more than 10,000 athletes and officials from the country's 17 regions to use sports as an effective tool to achieve national unity, peace and progress in keeping with the Palaro's theme this year: 'Bridging Unity, Peace and Progress through Sports,'" a Malacañang statement said.

The Palarong Pambansa aims to discover future talents among elementary and high school athletes in the grassroots level.

Also expected to attend the opening rites are Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn, 8th Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Arthur Tabaquero, Leyte police chief Senior Superintendent Doroteo Palconit and DepEd Regional Director Sol Matugas.

The Tacloban City Palaro has formally commence with a Tribute to the Games at 7:30 a.m., followed by a festive revelry by hundreds of dancers and cultural performers coming from the various towns in Leyte.

Gretchen Espina, the champion of Pinoy Idol 2008, will sing the Philippine national anthem to start a short program where Mrs. Arroyo will deliver her speech.

This will be the second time for Leyte to host the annual Palaro, the first being 1983.

For this staging, the Leyte province has spent P70 million to refurbish the Leyte Sports Development Center, the same venue where former Southeast Asian Games long jump queen Elma Muros upset sprint queen Lydia de Vega in the century dash in the 1983 Palaro.

Aside from athletics, other sports disciplines calendared this year are archery, arnis (secondary only), badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing (secondary only), chess, football, gymnastics, sepak-takraw, softball (secondary only), swimming, table tennis, lawn tennis, taekwondo and volleyball.

• GMANews.TV
• Philippine Sports Central