Nesthy Petecio, Irish Magno, Eumir Marcial and Carlo Paalam—AFP photos
BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — It’s not uncommon to see athletes trekking here to train, pandemic or no pandemic, thanks to its relative isolation, cold weather, and stamina-honing high altitude.
But it’s a pleasant surprise to find four Olympians — all power-punchers who have dazzled the world at the Tokyo Games — singing the same hymn of one of the city’s oldest schools: the University of Baguio (UB). The Davao-born fighter Nesthy Petecio, now basking in Olympic glory after clinching silver medal in the featherweight division on Tuesday, is taking up international hotel and tourism management at UB, according to university officials.
Irish Magno, who lost to her Thai foe in the women’s flyweight round of 16, is enrolled in criminology.
Middleweight Eumir Marcial, who is assured of a bronze medal in the Games after knocking out his Armenian opponent in the first round of their fight on Sunday, was enrolled at UB while training in the summer capital in 2015. He is a member of the Philippine Air Force.
Founder’s love for Olympics
Flyweight Carlo Paalam, who is also guaranteed a bronze medal after defeating Rio Olympic champion Shakhobidin Zoirov of Uzbekistan on Tuesday, had been part of the university’s senior high school program.
The university’s late founder Fernando Bautista, who had a great love for the Olympics, would have been proud of the four Olympians, his grandson and university president Javier Herminio Bautista told a Wednesday news conference.
“But let me be clear, the success of [the four Olympians] had nothing to do with UB,” he said, acknowledging that the athletes’ own skills propelled them to their Olympic feats.
Even so, a ticker-tape parade awaits them on their return to the university, if the quarantine curbs permit it, Bautista said.
The university, founded on Aug. 8, 1948, has an average student population of about 15,000, according to its website.
Sports scholars
By way of support, it has been offering scholarship grants to young sportsmen, including professional athletes who join annual training sessions in Baguio, UB athletic director Alan Elegado said.
Students can qualify for scholarships in grade school and enjoy the benefits until college, he said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the first quarter of 2020, UB had roughly 550 students with sports scholarships, although that number dropped to 360 in 2020 and this year, he said.
The scholarships are legacies of the UB founder “who wanted to give impoverished youths a chance to better themselves’’ in sports, Bautista said.
Athletes endure heavy training sessions in the early mornings and afternoons, and “spend the idle hours in between at classrooms,” the UB president said to illustrate their daily workload.
“We had one student athlete who took up education and found work as a teacher. The school saw that he had relevant athletic experience so we tapped him and he became the athletic director,” Bautista said, referring to Elegado.