The Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Richard Bachmann recognized the growing number of sports and participants in the Philippine ROTC Games.

He attended Wednesday’s action on the tournament’s Mindanao leg, making witness of eight sports namely arnis, boxing, and kickboxing, including debuting disciplines from 5v5 basketball, swimming, sepak takraw, target shooting, and raiders competition.

“The increase in the number of sports in the ROTC Games means a larger platform for our athletes to showcase their talents and, at the same time, expands our pool for talent identification in line with our mandate to the country’s grassroots sports,” Chairman Bachmann stated.

The participants in this year’s Mindanao leg already raised to around 2,000 athletes, coming from last year’s around 1,300.

The number of sports also increased to 15 from only seven on its inaugural staging last year. Among the sports also played in this year are athletics, e-sports, taekwondo, table tennis, volleyball, including chess which makes its pilot appearance in the tournament.

The head of the sports agency extended his appreciation to the brainchild of the tournament Sen. Francis Tolentino for committing to expand the platform aimed to instill the discipline and enthusiasm of cadets from numerous universities and colleges nationwide.

“We thank Sen. Tolentino, not just for engineering this tournament, but of course in making serious efforts to hold this consistently for the sake of Philippine sports,” Bachmann stated.

“I also thank Mayor John Dalipe for hosting the ROTC Games again here in Zamboanga City,” he added.

In partnership with the Department of National Defense and Commission on Higher Education, the Philippine ROTC Games is now on its second leg, with the Visayas edition took place in Bacolod City last month.

Indang, Cavite will host the Luzon leg and the National Championships in July and August.