By Nick Giongco
A bevy of world champions make up the third batch of the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame inductees that will be formally honored on Nov. 22, the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) said yesterday.
The star-studded cast is led by world bowling champions Paeng Nepomuceno, Bong Coo and Lita dela Rosa, Asia’s fastest woman Lydia de Vega and world flyweight king Erbito Salavarria.
Ten will be enshrined and the six others who made the grade include Ben Arda of golf, Josephine dela Vina of athletics, Loreto Carbonell and Ambrosio Padilla of basketball and Filomeno Codinera of baseball and softball.
Each awardee will receive P100,000 and a trophy.
The screening committee is made up of the PSC, the Philippine Olympic Committee, Games and Amusements Board, the Philippine Olympian Association, Philippine Sportswriters Association and a group representing the various national sports associations.
Nepomuceno’s choice was obvious as the 6-2 lefty had won four World Cup titles in 1978, 1980, 1992 and 1996. Same goes with Coo, a four-time world champion and five-time Asian Games gold medalist and Dela Rosa, who was the 1978 World Cup queen.
Salavarria became the World Boxing Council flyweight king in 1970 in Bangkok when he knocked out Chartchai Chionoi in the presence of the King of Thailand.
De Vega won gold medals in 100 meters during the 1982 (New Delhi) and 1986 (Seoul) Asian Games and represented the country in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. She also reigned as the Southeast Asian Games champion in 1987, 1991 and 1993.
Padilla, who later became a senator, was a member of the Philippine cage squad that placed fifth in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the highest finish by an Asian country in the quadrennial sportsfest.
Carbonell, like Padilla, is as decorated, having been a part of the 1954 team that bagged the bronze in the world championships in Rio de Janeiro.
