TAKING care of the needs of the elite athletes and providing the means to develop athletes at the grassroots level will be the main thrust of the Philippine Sports Institute.
National training director Marc Edward Velasco said this as he talked about the third revival of the PSI, which is set to take place on Jan. 16 at the Multipurpose Arena of the Philsports Complex in Pasig City.
“We will be able to give more to our elite athletes and at the same time the PSI will be the driving force of our grassroots program that will be implemented in the first quarter of the year,” said Velasco during a press conference yesterday.
Officials of the Philippine Sports Commission have big plans for the PSI, which will be the centerpiece program of the National Sports Development Program.
It will have a four-stage programs which are dedicated for both athletes identification and the training of a pool of researchers.
Under the grassroots development program (GSDP), talented kids who are between the age of eight to 15 years old will be chosen to undergo training.
This is a program which Velasco developed while working closely with deputy director Dr. Henry Daut, who came aboard last October.
The four stages of the GSDP will involve the training of the pool of researchers, the testing phase of selected athletes, the selection of the athletes, and their inclusion in the Smart Kids program.
President Rodrigo Duterte will be the guest speaker during its launch
The PSI was first initiated by former PSC chairmam Philip Ella Juico during his time with the agency from 1996 to 1998.
After that PSC chief William “Butch” Ramirez made efforts to restart it on his first tenure from 2005 to 2009.
The PSI is expected to become the PSC’s flagship program in terms of talent development.
The program is first set to be held initially in Davao, before it is later introduced in other provinces.
The PSC has plans to put up around 40 regional training centers in the provinces.
Ramirez said around 20 of the centers will be located in Luzon, while 10 will be in the Visayas region, and the other 10 will be in the Mindanao region.
Initially, around 16 areas were identified. But more LGUs got interested.
