BOOM or BUST?

BY: ANTHONY NAVARRO, in photo, Chesss Windows Laguna Correspondent

(NOTE: The author's views are solely his, in his hope that the message get through to the chess stakeholders or authorities.)

During that sole,momentous meeting so far with Ed Pascual of FACM / BW and (Northern)Laguna chess stakeholders, which was just as recent as late February during the STCAA qualifiers,we were talking about the various chess groups pursuing their own projects. My own term for this in one of the emails were 'mushrooms' (mga kabute na nagsulputan).

Since then, we have seen since March literally an 'explosion' in chess sponsorships and projects if I may rattle off a few, we heard of the announcements and initial tournaments of the National Book Store, next editions of Dr Jose Leviste at the Ateneo, the Davis Cup,the forthcoming launch of PACE and the NCA / Bato Balani, aside from the NCFP-sponsored big tournaments, and current sponsors like Atty. Rellorcasa, Engr Dumadag, Shell Active and a bevy of politicos specially during this election campaign period.

In fact, I can still vividly recall in the First Saturday of March, there were 3 tournaments on that day and ALL 3 had kiddies categories, the NBS at Galleria, the Checkmate in St Francis Square and Dr. Bong Perez' First Saturday in Bicutan. The arbiters' groups, specially those in NCR, must be having even busier schedules, specially during weekends for these tournaments.

But let me be a positive advocate here and pose the question here, "is Philippine chess on the right path?" Hey, we may have the tournaments left and right, top and bottom but are our kiddies/youth getting the proper chess education which is the foundation whether they will progress far or not? Though the Philippines may have thrived or able to get by with an 'organized chaos' set-up, being up against organized,systematic and well-funded programs just looking at our ASEAN neighbors will eventually catch up with us, I think!

I would love to be proven wrong, but if we don't watch out, there could be a rude wake-up call as early as the ASEAN Age Group which we are hosting at Subic this June. Just some bullet points I took note in various interfaces / talks with chess personalities, as well as my observations:

* Per talks with our own GM who has a teaching track record, tournaments are not enough. The foundation is the proper chess education and training.

* In the last ASEAN Primary School competition in Jakarta in Q4 of last year, Philippines got no medal, not even a bronze medal. You can get detailed feedback from the coaches/parents who attended there but the stories I heard when they got back is there are tough, well-trained kiddies champs from Indonesia,Malaysia and Vietnam.

* Vietnam chess authorities commented to our GM that 'your Wesley So is good, but in (about) 5 years' time, we will produce at least TEN Wesley So's' ?!

Note : the current sensation Le I heard was a Viet prodigy together with Nguyen who swept ALL the gold medals in the last SEA Games hosted by the Phils (in Tagaytay). So, is Le just the tip of the iceberg? Will the Viets unravel their 'secret weapons' in the June Subic event?

* Even Singapore, we comment they got many of our IM's as teachers but they don't have good players. But as experienced by our GM, they just focus for a few years like in upper grade school and lower high school (which is the age group brackets!), then drop it when about to get into College. Chess is just hobby for them.

* As Ed shared, a well respected chess columnist comments that today's college varsity players are 'much weaker' than the varsity players in their time (about 20 years ago). This was seconded by an NM who shared during their time there were a lot more interschool competitions aside from the NCAA & UAAP, like the Buklod Bayan etc...

Lately, pronouncements of the launching of private institutions such as the PACE and National Chess Academy (NCA)/Bato Balani will somehow remedy the stalled DepEd 'chess in curriculum' program, though this will be a drop in the bucket vs the needed nationwide scale of a true grassroots development program. My observation though is the NCA Students Age Group qualifiers will end by mid-May and that's just a few weeks from the ASEAN Subic play dates, so probably there will just be cramming for the preparations as usual. Just to note we will be up against continuously running (for years now) programs and the current ASEAN top bets have been training for years already and yes with ALL the goodies, like foreign coach,softwares, foreign exposure.

As I've said I would love to be proven wrong, but it is better to raise the alarm bells now and not be totally surprised. We will always pick ourselves up from the stumbles the Pinoy way, but if this helps bring about some system or organization, then the time taken to write this was well worth it !