Deserving More Than Mediocre Facilities

By Randell Palatan

Listening to resounding cheers as the school’s best student athletes face off in their final
match after long hours of wait during the sportsfest. Finally, the moment everyone has been
waiting for, a heated match during a stormy September month. Unfortunately, for fans and
players, the game had to be cancelled because the floor of a covered gymnasium is too wet.

Columban College Inc. has always been a welcoming host to many organizations and
fellow educational institutions as a venue for their events. From division contests to full on
national events, even the Alaska summer sports camp, we always have a room to spare for those
who seek. It is indeed something to boast having a huge gymnasium, an olympic size pool and a
wide oval all in one campus, a combination not every college have, but is it even worth
bragging?

Decades have passed over these sports facilities in the Barretto campus but obviously, not
everything improves with time. From a covered gymnasium with a hundred holes on the roof to
an olympic size pool that always looks unclean due to the moss to a wide oval nobody knows
why it is even there if the students don’t even use it. Decades may have passed and many things
may have changed in Columban but these same old problems has always seemed neglected.

After the events of the National PRISAA Games 2019 in Davao City last May, where the
Knights came home victorious with 4 golds, 9 silvers and 15 bronzes, and taking into account the
growing population of students, especially in the Senior High School department, who are taking
swimming classes, is it that hard to consider an improvement? Are our athletes and students not
deserving of something more than mediocre facilities?

The gymnasium has been of great help to many of the Barretto campus’ events and the
college’s annual sportsfest every September. However, when the rainy season comes, a covered
gymnasium is supposed to be a saving grace but it is not. There were many instances when
events were held despite the gym floor being flooded by rainwater coming from the ceiling.
Much-awaited games were postponed because of the same reason. The admin’s action to
renovate the roof is hoped to solve the problem but that remains to be seen when the stormy days
come.

One of the more famous sports in the college, where its athletes also excel in
competitions and is taken up by senior high school and college students alike, is swimming. Not
many colleges in Zambales has an olympic size pool but instead of being a pride, the facility has
been a topic of many criticisms from the students. How could it not be? It looks so unclean and
unsanitary and in many occasions, there are more moss floating in the water than there are
students swimming.
 According to research, there are no exact measurement of when pool water should be
drained and replaced. It varies from 2 months to over 5 years depending on the number of daily
users, climate and the type of water and chemicals used. With this in mind, a monthly change
wouldn’t be so bad since hundreds of students use it every week, even frogs take a dip
sometimes. However, nobody really knows for sure when it is changed or if it is changed at all of
they just add more chlorine.

Lastly, a wide oval, the biggest sports facility the college has in its long list of assets. An
oval that is so big, another campus could be built in it housing a thousand more students and
opening more courses. An oval that can even be a venue for sports events in the division and in
the region or maybe as simple as a place for our students and athletes to use but does anyone
even remember when was the last time they stepped foot on this chunk of wasted potential?
Every now and then the grass is trimmed but even after that, the land is left unused by the
students for the whole year. A big asset that proves to be a bigger liability.

These are the faces of neglect, reflecting how the people who could’ve improved it or
make a change turned a blind eye and focused on other things like a million peso gate perhaps
that no one asked for. We are not asking for a big change right here, right now. What we are
asking is something our students and our athletes, who have proven with their long list of
victory, deserve for many years now. We are deserving of something more than just neglected,
mediocre sports facilities. It is understandable that there are more things on top of the priority list
but if we are planning to be a successful and stable educational institution by 2022, better take in
consideration the maintenance of few of our biggest assets.