Press Release
September 11, 2016

Trillanes calls for creation of Department of Sports

Senator Antonio "Sonny" F. Trillanes IV urges his colleagues to support Senate Bill No. 451 or the bill establishing the Department of Sports, which would take the lead in providing the leadership and the much-needed reform in sports development in the country.

According to Trillanes: "Over the years, our country has been struggling to excel on various sports; however, our lack of comprehensive national sports program, obsolete training methods, lack of state-of-the art facilities and modern equipment have been holding us down and have been the culprits in the country's poor performance in various international competitions."

Trillanes seeks to address these issues by creating the Department of Sports which will act as the single, unified and integrated national sports policy-making body and will be headed by a cabinet secretary. Trillanes hopes that this will encourage wider participation of all sectors, including the government and private sector, in amateur sports promotion and development.

"We need to integrate all talent identification programs in the country - from grassroots development to identification of national team members up to their training for international competitions. Once these talents are identified, we need to pour in the necessary resources for them to succeed in the international arena. Philippines, according to statistics, currently is among the countries that have the lowest percentage of budget allocation for sports in terms of their national budget," added Trillanes.

Once created, the Department of Sports shall organize specialized bureaus, the Amateur Sports Development and the International Sports Development Bureau, to ensure the proper implementation of this measure. Further, additional budget shall be allocated for the identification, recruitment, training of athletes, and all other sports competitions throughout the country and in the international level.

"We are the remaining country in southeast Asia which has a sports authority that is not a department or a cabinet level. This sadly reflects that priority we put into our sports development. It is hoped that once this measure is passed, sports in the Philippines would again become an integral component of youth development, a galvanizing and leading force for National Unity, and a source of national pride," Trillanes further added.

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