Region 7 karatedo officials plan to hold tournaments every quarter

After last Monday’s general meeting of the Central Visayas Union of Karatedo Organizations Incorporated (CVUKOI), the prime movers behind the region’s karatedo organizations have decided to be more active in staging tournaments in 2014.

Rolando Basergo, the head of Region 7’s Karatedo Federation, Union of Philippine Karatedo Organizations Incorporated (Upkori), told Cebu Daily News they came up with this during their special meeting at the J Centre Mall’s Food Express Open Lobby last Monday.

Basergo, who headed the successful holding of the recent 3rd National/Invitational Open Karatedo Championships where more than 160 karatekas from different clubs in the province saw action, said it was decided and finalized that starting next year, they will be staging local and national karatedo tournaments every quarter.

Mandaue City’s Sports Commission executive director Engineer Ricardo Mendoza, who was present during the meeting alongside 12 heads of the member organizations around the region, first proposed for CVUKOI to hold tournaments once every two months. But it was later decided that tournaments will be staged once every quarter or once in three months.

Among the member clubs of CVUKOI are the Advocacy in the Strengthening of Karatedo (ASK), the University of the Visayas (UV) karate club, the Labogon Karate Club of Mandaue City (LKC-MC), Arnis-Shotukan Karatedo Society (ASKS), AUF-Talisay, Mandaue City Karatedo Club and the Japan Karate Association (JKA)-Headquarters.

Basergo also announced that the upgrading and promotional blackbelt examinations of the fighters of the different karate clubs around the region will now be held in the second Sunday of February. /Jade S. Violeta, Correspondent