*299. History in Sports: CENTRAL LUZON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEETS

HIT AND MISS. An inter-school outdoor women's softball competition gets underway in San Fernando. Ca. mid 1920s.

The region’s premiere inter-provincial athletic meet began in 1908, when American school superintendents from Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and the Central Luzon Agricultural School organized a sporting competition in Malolos, as a way of promoting sports consciousness towards developing a sound mind and a healthy body. The athletic meet also aimed to foster goodwill and the spirit of sportsmanship and fair play among the youth. Thus, the first ever Central Luzon Athletic Association was held on 22 February 1908, in Malolos. As expected, the host province of Bulacan ruled the centerpiece track and field events, emerging as the overall champion. The pioneer games featured a few number of sports including baseball (outdoor and indoor, for girls), basketball and volleyball.

From the time of the inception of the CLAA meet, Pampanga’s athletes rose to the occasion by consistently delivering gold medal-worthy performances for the home province, clinching their first championship in 1913. In the early editions of the meet, Kapampangan ball players dominated the basketball events starting in 1915, with a 4-year winning streak from 1917-20. Pampanga’s women’s softball teams snapped Bulacan’s 4-year championship run (1916-1919) by capturing the crown in 1920, defending the title for 8 amazing years. So much for girl power! The boy’s volleyball team, on the other hand, smashed their way to three-peat victories in 1932, 1933 and 1934.

Notable Kapampangan athletes who left their mark on the cinder track include Pedro Chanco, who, in 1913, ruled the 50 Yard dash in 5.6 secs. The time remained unbeaten until the event was subsequently discontinued. Only one managed to equal the record in 1915—Rufino Dimson—also of Pampanga! All-time records were set by Salvador Garcia, whose time of 10 secs. Flat in the 100 Yard Dash in 1923, stood for 12 years. He also held the record for the 220 Yards, with a time of 23.4 secs. Meanwhile, Pampanga’s 880 Yard Relay Teams first established the meet record of 1 min. 38.6 secs. in 1915, which was equaled in the 1917 and 1918 outings of the games. The great runner, Wenceslao Dizon was a member of the relay team in all those winning years.

 In 1925, Francisco David set a meet record of 11 secs. in the 100 Meter Dash, equaled only in 1934 by kabalen, Roberto Buñag. Buñag did one better by running the 100 Meter High Hurdles in 16 secs.—a new meet record. Then, he anchored the 400 Meter Relay race with Cayetano Coronel, Abel Quiwa and Eustaquio Sunga to establish a new meet mark of 46.6 secs. Just a year before, team mate Sunga rewrote the record for the Running Broad Jump with his leap of 6.31 meters.

Out on the field, Pampanga’s Andres Arceo tied wit Nueva Ecija’s Miguel Sujeco in setting a Pole Vault record of 11 feet, 4 inches in 1926—a new meet standard. The hefty teener Amando P. Quioc heaved the 16 lb. Shot Put to a record-breaking distance of 9.73 meters in 1934. Quioc would later become a future mayor of Mabalacat in the late 1950s.

The CLAA meets continued through the 40s. interrupted only by the War. By the 1950s, all 7 Central Luzon provinces—Bulacan, Bataan, Zambales, Pampanga, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan-- were active participants of the “carnival of sports among the public yuoths of Central Luzon”. Pampang first hosted the annual meet on 20 January 1912, in the capital town of San Fernando.

Many changes have been instituted in the meet by the time the 1958 edition was staged again in Malolos—the second post-Liberation games hosted by the province. Other than the popular ball games and athletics, medals were also contested for the native game of “sipa”. Stand-outs that years was Pampanga’s Basketball Team coached by Rafael Aguilar. On the list of track stars were: Jesus Marcelo, Rufino Henson, Andres Soto, Ricardo Singian, Vicente Sampang, Pablo Batac, Rosa Mercado, Leticia Tolentino, Filipinas Tulabut, Elizabeth Pike, Encarnacion Magat and Gloria Simeon.

The meets of CLAA were re-named as Central Luzon Regional Atheltic Association Meets (CLRAA) in the 60s. Pangasinan was reclassified as part of the Ilocos Region; its athletes thus, were absorbed by the Ilocos Regional Athletic Association. By the 70s, the expanded program of events include disciplines such as Cycling, Aquatics, Gymnastics and Martial Arts. The games also accommodated athletes from both the Elementary and Secondary Divisions. Medallists go on to represent the region in the national games, the Palarong Pambansa-- from which future members of the Philippine Olympic team are identified for training in the national pool.

 The most recent staging of the CLRAA meet was held at the Zambales Sports Complex in Iba, from 20-25 February 2012. The event drew over 13,000 athletes from all Central Luzon provinces that now include Aurora, and from the cities of Angeles, San Fernando, Cabanatuan, Gapan, Muñoz, San Jose (N.E.) , Malolos, San Jose del Monte, Tarlac and Balanga. Pampanga placed second to the overall champion, Bulacan.

*295. HORSING AROUND AT STOTSENBURG

A HORSE WITH NO NAME. A favorite annual activity at Camp Stotsenburg is the holding of a Sports Week or Sports Carnival, which featured  equestrian events such as polo, horseback riding and horse dressage, which includes obstacle racing such as the one shown on the photo above. ca. 1915.

Fort Stotsenburg, the precursor of Clark Air Base, started as a military camp with the size of 7,600 acres. By 1908, it had expanded to 158,277 acres, to include parts of Dolores in Mabalacat, Bamban and Zambales Mountains, including the Pinatubo area. The size and breadth of the enlarged military camp was perfect for exploration and adventure, especially on horseback. Soon, Stotsenburg became an ideal equestrian paradise, the site of many horse-based sports competition, field events and exhilarating horse rides on mountain sides and ridges, amidst wild but spectacular surroundings.

 A certain Capt. H. A. Myers was lavish in his recommendation of the camp environs, noting that “the Stotsenburg Reservation and nearby country in general, offers much that is worthwhile for persons interested in mounted activities. Not only is there much pleasure to be derived from riding over the country, but there is much beautiful scenery and many interesting landmarks to be seen”. Horse trails led to the lush and luxuriant Fern Canyon, whose main attractions are its variety of giant ferns that dot its landscape. There was also a Lost Canyon that abounded with colored birds and orchids.

Trails were fancifully named according to the natural characteristics of the terrain—Three Crater Trail, Top o’ the World Hill, Banyan Trail, Dead Horse Pass Trail and Dry River Bed Trail, among others. Soldiers and their families took to riding these trails during their off-duty hours every Wednesday, with pit stops along the way. There were waterfalls and swimming holes where people could take refreshing dips as well as good viewing spots from where one could survey the camp and the surrounding areas. But it was easy to get lost too, and there have been reported cases of missing people. In 1919 for example, 4 army men were trapped by rising waters in a narrow canyon along the Bamban River, necessitating their rescue by the daring army pilot, Lt. Ira Eaker. 

Meanwhile, equestrian field events were being introduced as early as 1909 in Stotsenburg. The most popular were the polo games, and at one point, the polo teams of the camp claimed to be the best in the Far East. During the term of post commander, Brig. Gen. Hagood Johnson, the army polo team played against the visiting Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) in 1922. Polo fields were laid out in the base parade grounds and regular polo tournaments were soon being held every April, during the Sports Week. Though skilled and experienced, the American team were no match against the “Los Tamaraos” (the team of Elizalde brothers), which had more superior horses that the Filipino-Spanish millionaires could very well afford.

 In the mid 20s, Stotsenburg held Sports Carnivals that included golf, ball games and riding events. The equestrian competition included dressage, horse-jumping events and bareback riding, with silver cups awarded to champion teams and individual winners. Much of the riding trails have all but been changed with the continuous alteration and modification of the camp grounds. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo obliterated not just the trails but also permanently changed the landscape of the military base. Beginning in 2009, the picnic grounds of Clark Field became alive again with the sounds of trotting horses and ponies.

Today, the spacious grounds near the Mabalacat exit gate have been transformed into a riding range, with a pseudo-main street complex that sports a wild, wild west theme complete with a salon named “El Kabayo”. Here, one can rent horses and ponies by the hour, for a leisurely ride around the picturesque grassy trail canopied by giant mimosa trees. The sight of smiling kids on ponies led by guides and more experienced riders galloping at full speed certainly brings back memories of old Clark in the 1920s and 30s, when it held repute among sports and leisure lovers as an equestrian paradise.

31. LET'S GET THE BALL ROLLING!

LORD OF THE RINGS. A champion basketball team from an unidentified Kapampangan school with their teacher-coaches. Circa 1920s.

Next to arithmetic, P.E. or Physical Education was my least favorite subject in my elementary days. As a child, I was rather sickly, but that didn’t deter my teachers from pushing me into joining those energy-zapping exercises like chinning bar (using the metal rails of our school water tank) , running, baseball and calisthenics. Field demonstrations were always a part of important school activities like the annual Foundation Day. Here, we were required to perform mass calisthenics in front of an uninterested crowd, who preferred the more colorful folk dances than our uninspired knee-bending, arm-twirling, waist-twisting, low-impact exercises, done with blue ribbons on our fingers and in synch with the instrumental beat of “Shine Little Glow Worm, Glimmer”. How I hated those moments under the hot, searing sun!

Blame the Americans for incorporating Physical Education classes into our school curriculum. As a U.S. colony in the first part of the 20th century, American officials revamped our educational system, introducing such concepts as agricultural schooling, “pensionado” scholarships for Filipinos and importation of teachers known as “Thomasites”, who established the public school system with success.

School experience was never the same when the first American teachers, who were actually soldiers, traded their guns for text books. Wanting to infuse new interests previously unknown, they first introduced baseball to their students. Boys and girls alike took to the diamond easily, and soon, baseball—the pioneer of all ball sports and considered as America’s national game in 1872-- became a popular campus activity. Basketball (invented by James Naismith in 1891), track and field, volleyball, Indian clubs were other major sports that caught Filipino students’ fancy.

As if those were not enough, Americans cooked up events to showcase the results of their cultivation of physical culture. Mass calisthenics were always a staple performance during Garden Day celebrations. Inter-school athletic meets were also held yearly, which eventually expanded to include provinces and districts. The annual Manila Carnival (1908-1939) often featured sports competitions, which promoted pride and loyalty to province and country. The Misamis Indoor Baseball Team, for instance, won the championship in the 1915 edition of the Carnival. The team from Olongapo also were winners in previous baseball outings.

American teachers further emphasized the importance of physical education on the ordinary student by requiring a grade of 75% in order for him to be promoted above third grade. Other than calisthenics, favorite P.E. sports included marching drills, group games and folk dancing.

It is exciting to think that because of physical education, many Kapampangans took to sports and became masters of their game. Pampanga’s list of sports heroes is short but respectable: In basketball, we have Hector Calma, Charlie Badion, Ato Agustin, Hall of Famers Gabby and Fely Fajardo, Ed Ocampo, Yeng Guiao and 1936 Berlin Olympian Fortunato Yambao. Of course, Pampanga Dragons were the very first grand champions of the 1998 Metropolitan Basketball Association held right in San Fernando. On the distaff side, the Girls’ Little Leaguers of Pulung Masle, Guagua were Philippine champs in softball from 1994 to 1997 while the Juniors’ Softball Team from the same town figured prominently in the world championships. Even the sports that once was associated with istambays (hangers-on) and students playing hooky—billiards—gained legitimate respectability with the triumphs of Kapampangan Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francis “Django” Bustamante.

On a personal note, after showing indifference to countless school meets like PRISAA and CLRAA (Central Luzon Regional Athletic Association, held since the 1920s) and avoiding all kinds of sports in college, I became a sports jock of sorts when I turned professional. I swam competitively, raced in track and field meets, taught aerobics and lifted weights, sometimes twice in a given day. Belated though my interest in sports, I am sure that the Ghosts of our American P.E. Teachers Past must be very pleased.
(18 January 2003)

5. TOY STORIES

CHILD’S PLAY: Kapampangan kids pose with their favorite toys in these 1930s portrait sittings. The girls are shown with a U.S.-made composition head (made of sawdust, glue and paper) doll while the boy giddyups on a mohair-covered plush horse, of English make.

“Iniang malati ku..”
What better way to start reminiscing about the “good old days” than by remembering the years of our childhood? And memories of our youth often revolve around the games children played, and the toys that we amused ourselves with—in school, at home every Saturday morning, after siestas or oracions--fun moments that thrill our imagination while testing our competitiveness.

Back when I was an elementary student in Mabalacat in the mid 60s, our after-class hours were devoted to playing games of catch like maro and tambubung. It took very little to have great fun then—you dig holes on the ground and you can play holen for hours. Or take 2 bamboo sticks and you’re ready for siyatung. We also played piku, using a batu from old bathroom tiles, pebble or flower pot shards. There were even exciting variations of this hopscotch game—pikung ocho and pikung sampaga, where the playing field was drawn like a figure 8 or in the shape of petalled flower, respectively.

After a while, our games assumed a sense of Western sophistication, blame it on our stateside second-hand Dick and Jane schoolbooks discarded from nearby Clark. Pretty soon, we were singing and playing “Jump partner, and skippy domino” and “London bridge is falling down”. The latter game, as it turned out, was an ancient juvenile game that even had a 19th century Spanish counterpart called “A La Viva”, which, long before the Americans came, was already being played and sung in our Islands along with “Pen pen de sarapen, cucillo de almazen..”

Home on week-ends, it was back to native games: salikutan (hide and seek), sisingle ( akin to “Pussy, pussy change corner”) , tumpang preso and tukupan similan (blindman’s bluff). It was also on Saturdays that we brought out our precious toys like the trusty tirador, meticulously whittled from the branches of our backyard biyabas tree or our pasi (tops), bought from the corner store—a whirling, spinning toy wonder that rotated on the sharpest of nails, that often damaged our polished concrete floor. For added visual delight, we often painted the heads of our tops with crayons, so that they spin in technicolor. Philippine indigenous tribes like the Maranaws also played with tops called “kuti”, carved from heavy wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. These prized tops were spun by hand. The Bataks of Palawan also have their version, their tops mimicking the shape of a kasuy (cashew).

My father was forever tinkering with his Sarao jeepneys and his garage proved to be a happy hunting ground for metal washers, which, wrapped in papel de japon (thin Japanese paper) became high-flying sipas. Old bolts, nails and toggle heads became perminante rocket darts, with the help of rubber bands and chicken feathers. On some days, we held babagwa (spider) fights, labulan goma (rubber band blowing games) or shook our sampalok tree to catch salagubang and salaginto. With one leg tied to a sewing thread, the hapless insect was transformed into a droning airplane!

For those into less physical play, sungka was the sedentary game of choice. Played on a wooden sungkahan with 14 holes, the objective was to transport by hand the most number of sige shells into your “home”, bigger holes carved at the end of the wooden board. Sungka is actually known in other Asian countries as “chongka” , and is familiar to children in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and even in parts of Africa and Arabia. The sungkahan itself is a work of art, often carved with mythical figures like naga or dragons. I have seen antique sungkahans decorated with lizard and alligator carvings and even one example featuring carved human hands cupping wooden bowls. The Maranaws also have polychrome sungkahans locally known as tidora, embellished with traditional “okir” pattern.

Western toys reached the Philippines only in the 19th century, and even then, these were often very expensive. Dolls, manufactured in France, Germany and England, were created from porcelain, bisque, Parian or composition. So fragile were these dolls that they were taken out to comfort the child only when she became sick; otherwise, the dolls stayed securely inside escaparates. Boys, on the other hand, rode on toy pedal cars and velocipedes, wheeled vehicles that took the form of ponies, camels and other animals. It is no wonder then that the appeal of Shirley Temple dolls, Schwinn bicycles and Buck Rogers tin ray guns did not catch on with parents. Instead, the more affordable clay kurang-kurangans, newspaper burarul (kites), acrobatic whirligigs and feathered pasandirits created from milk cans and sold in front of churches after Mass, struck our childhood fancy.

The age of computer technology has all but obliterated these toys of our endless leisure and amusement. Millions of children now sit transfixed before computer screens, eyes unblinking, nimble fingers on the joystick, ready to bombard the enemy with laser weapons and rocket blasts in games like Counterstrike, Tomb Raider and Wizardry. Technology has indeed changed the rules of the game and the way we play. With realistic and often violent action scenes, today’s toys leave very little for the imagination as well as opportunity for human interaction. Call me technophobic, but I still find the raucous laughter of kids as they outwit and outplay each other in tambubung, more genuinely refreshing than the ear-splitting, high-decibel roar of PlayStation, Atari and Nintendo games combined.

I bet all my teks cards on that!
(13 July 2002)