Mati City hosts DAVRAA

DAVAO ORIENTAL, February 25 (PIA) - - More than 5,000 students and coaches gathered yesterday in Mati City, Davao Oriental for the opening of the Davao Regional Athletic Association (DAVRAA) Meet.

According to the Department of Education (DepEd) records, the DAVRAA participants included 3,699 player-students, 581 coaches, 95 chaperons and 591 technical officials.

Elementary and highschool students divided into 10 divisions compete today on 21 sporting events held in 25 venues within Mati City.

Mati City Vice Mayor Glenda Rabat-Gayta said during a recent press conference that the city government shelled out around P10-million for the hosting of the DAVRAA.

“Those amount that we invested have been utilized more on the rehabilitation of the classrooms used as billeting quarters of the players and coaches,” Vice Mayor Rabat-Gayta said.

The players and coaches were accommodated in 10 public secondary and elementary schools in the five barangays of the city.

Gayta said that local business enterprises have been excited and waiting for the DAVRAA meet to start as they foresee increase in income.

“Actually, they considered the staging of DAVRAA as their peak season for their business,” she said.

Meanwhile, DepEd Region XI spokesperson Jenielito Atillo assured that the meet will not be tainted with an issue on biases from technical official, who are holding specific sporting events.

“The selection of technical officials underwent tedious process of examining their attitudes and characters. And now we are 150% sure that the technical officials are working for the DepEd regional office and not for their division,” Atillo said. (PIA11, Michael Uy)