Unearthing the promised land
Story by Denver Del Rosario
Steff Legaspi has sacrificed a lot. Too much, perhaps.
She runs her fastest , paying no heed to the dust that gathers beneath her feet. sweat and heat mean nothing compared to the goal of bringing home the glory.
With the company of her team, she has been training nonstop.
Legaspi and her teammates travel all the way to the Philsports Arena in Pasig City for practice every Wednesday and Friday. The 11-kilometer distance from UP might seem manageable, but the horrendous city traffic makes it feel farther. Time wasted stuck on the road could have been time spent for finishing papers and academics.
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The team, after all, is a team of students.
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Despite the trouble of going from school to venue, Legaspi does not mind, and neither do her teammates. For them, it is an inevitable part of their responsibility.
In the end, it is all for the institution they represent: the country’s premier university, no less.
An institution, it seems, that has neglected the responsibility it owes them.
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A broken promise
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For a very long time, the track and field team trained at the open field behind the Bahay ng Alumni, together with the football and baseball varsity teams. Puddles, old goalposts, and a rough track oval--it was not the most well-maintained facility.
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Still, it was better than nothing.
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But a year ago, hope shone on their shabby track. Legaspi was promised a field and a track oval within 13 weeks. This pledge was a part of a bigger promise: a football stadium which will rise at the site as part of the UP Diliman Sports Complex Zone.
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Officials from UP and the Philippine Azkals Foundation Inc. signed an agreement to improve the said facility. With a capacity of 15,000, it shall be a huge stadium on par with international standards.
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After completion, the site will be named the UP-Azkals Football Field.
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The assurance of an improved training ground had the varsity team excited. Finally, there would be no more compromises. Finally, change has come their way.
All they had to do was wait.
Legaspi was skeptical of this promise. She knew it was too big of a task, an impossibility for a university with minimal funding for athletics and sports.
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True enough, UP’s vow of renewed training grounds awaits fulfillment. The field was abandoned in the middle of its construction. With the track team away, grass and dust covered the circuit they once knew.
The football pitch was expected to be finished last year. Months have passed but the field is far from the stadium that was promised, leaving the UP community wondering what went wrong.
According to Philippine Azkals team manager Dan Palami, construction of the field was delayed mainly due to the weather.
“We are finished with the backfill but we are waiting for the land to settle down before we proceed,” he said.
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The site of the field was originally a deep and uneven area that has recently been filled up, leveled and elevated to be resistant to floods. Around 2,000 truckloads of filling materials were used to prepare the site.
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Under Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) standards, a 95% field density rate should be met. However, due to sporadic rainfall, the ground fails to achieve the required compaction.
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“Of course, the contractor will not lay down the carpet unless the land settles. They have the last touch, so to speak,” he said. “Once na-achieve na iyon, madali na ang trabaho.”
Meanwhile, construction of the drainage system for the dewatering of the site only started this year. The drainage system could have alleviated the rain’s effects, especially in a country like the Philippines.
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A problem of priorities
With the delay, athletes continue to pay the price.
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More than the time spent on off-campus trainings, each member of the track and field pays 17 pesos per training day. According to Legaspi, the team has no funds.
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“Getting funds or sponsorships is quite difficult when you have 80 athletes in your team,” she said.
Recently, they acquired sponsorship from the Philippine Arena, allowing them to train in the sports stadium for free every Monday.
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While the distance from Diliman to Bocaue, Bulacan is too far to fit their schedules, they still push through.
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For the athletes, university life has become a matter of choosing between training and academics. Sometimes, they arrive late to class because of traffic. Sometimes, they have to sacrifice their study time for training.
“Other times, they have to spend for their commute back to UP if the transportation for varsity members is unavailable. Agawan talaga yung varsities,” Legaspi added.
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The football team has been training anywhere they can. From the Marikina Sports Complex to the Mckinley Hill Stadium in Taguig to FEU Fern’s football field -- everything depends on whichever field is available.
“It causes us to have erratic and uncertain training sessions,” she said.
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Cristina de los Reyes, women’s football team captain, shared her team’s experiences as well.
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Members of the football team also pay for their training expenses. De los Reyes revealed that the team has shelled out a rough estimate of 300,000 pesos already.
High hopes
According to UP Vice President for Development Elvira Zamora, the Futbol Azkals Foundation, Inc. is no longer involved in the project since May 2016. The foundation's appointed contractor did part of the earlier soil compaction.​
UP has taken over the project and has finished the bidding process for the field.
“The artificial turf, synthetic track, collapsible bleachers and chain link fence have been bid out, awarded, and [the] notice to proceed [was] issued to the winning bidder/supplier/contractor,” she said.
Construction has resumed since rains have now become less frequent, according to Zamora.
“We estimate that the project will be completed within 4 to 5 months,” she said.
Amid the growing displeasure in the UP community, Palami requests everyone to understand.
“I understand their sentiments, but most people don’t understand that such a field takes time to finish,” he said. “We want to make sure that UP has a field that is better than any other pitches in the country.”
Renting out fields, shouldering training costs, sacrificing time for studies -- Legaspi, De Los Reyes, and the other athletes have everything against them. Yet they find their drive in the glory, never running short of their responsibility of representing the community in different competitions and making them proud.
Up to now, the promised land remains a promise.
