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By Frank Calapre, Correspondent
BACOLOD: Amateur Boxing
Association of the Philippines chairman Manny Pangilinan and
President Ricky Vargas Thursday urged young hopefuls to forego any
plans of turning professional and instead be a part of the RP
national pool, which would be trained until in the 2012 London
Olympics.
Pangilinan announced that PLDT
and Smart would be giving cash incentives of P12 million for any
boxer, who can win Olympic gold, P3 million for silver and P1
million for the bronze medallist.
He explained that the cash
rewards is from PLDT and Smart alone and does not include the usual
incentives offered by the government.
“To all who are planning to
turn professional boxers, I guess you have to at least think twice
now. With this incentives, I’m sure it’s worth to be just an
amateur boxer and win the gold in the Olympics,” Vargas said.
Apart from the Olympic cash
incentives, Pangilinan, who is also chairman and chief executive
officer of PLDT and Smart, also said that they are also giving P2
million for the gold, P1 million for the silver and P500,000 for the
bronze winners in the Asian Games and P300,000 for gold, P200,000
for the silver and P100,000 for the bronze in the Southeast Asian
Games.
A whopping P1 million also awaits
a Filipino gold medalist in the world championship and P500,000 for
the silver as well as P250,000 for the bronze.
Meanwhile, National team
mainstays continued to dominate the 2009 Smart Amateur Boxing
Championships at the Negros Occidental Multi-Purpose gym.
Light flyweight Albert Pabila of
the Navy, flyweight Rey Saludar of the Army, bantamweight Godfrey
Castro also of the Army and featherweight Joan Tipon successfully
defeated separate foes to reach the semifinal round and assured
themselves of at least a bronze medal.
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