Manila, Philippines, November 10, 2022: The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) hopes that more women and girls will participate in sports by staging the 8th Women’s Martial Arts Festival from November 12-17 at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila.
"My objective is to increase the participation of women athletes,” said PSC Commissioner Olivia "Bong" Coo during the weekly Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the PSC Conference Room, reports the Philippine News Agency.
The 8th Women's Martial Arts Festival features 11 sports: pencak silat, wrestling, sambo, taekwondo, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, jujitsu, kurash, arnis and judo.
All competitions will be streamed live on the Women’s Martial Arts Festival Facebook page of the PSC, which is the government sports agency.
Coo is hoping to discover more Filipina talents who will follow in the footsteps of the Olympic weightlifting gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo, World Games karate champion Junna Tsukii, world jujitsu champions Meggie Ochoa and Kimberly Anne Custodio and US Open Junior girls' singles titlist Alex Eala, among others.
“We can see in the past that most of the winners were women. Let's increase the number of women athletes and that's why we are here to support,” she said.
Coo, a bowling legend and Philippine Sports Hall of Famer, said she looked forward to her first major project under the Women in Sports programme. She is also encouraging parents to expose their children to sports as early as possible.
Coo said the tournament can be used by National Sports Associations (NSAs) to search for new talents to strengthen their national pool.
“We hope that, during our term, we can help produce more medals for the country,” the former four-time world champion said.
The Philippines will use the martial arts festival as a selection process for the 6th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Thailand in November 2023.