Brothers Phil and James Younghusband, with the Loyola Meralco Sparks Football Club (LMSFC), conduct football clinic for football participants from all over the Philippines at the Emperador Stadium, Bonifacio Global City. Photo courtesy of Lt Col Stephen Cabanlet (PM).
BELIEVING that not all wars are won with guns, the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) is espousing a paradigm of peace and development away from guns to other dimensions of progress and development, notably through sports.
A “Football for Peace” program started in 2011, initially when some kids in Sulu saw some Marines playing football during their spare time and asked to be taught how to also kick ball. During the first Football for Peace festival at the Marine Headquarters in Taguig in November 2011, the PMC conducted simultaneous football clinics in schools near Marine detachment units in Sulu aimed not only to develop and hone football skills but also to instil the values of discipline, camaraderie, teamwork and sportsmanship.
“Balls, not bullets,” the PMC’S Sulu football slogan went, or “Our goal is peace,” as this year’s slogan goes. The football for peace program also aims to inspire people to provide scholarships and help send less privileged football-playing kids to school. Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Cabanlet, the festival’s program coordinator, is quick to expalin in an interview, though, that while the Philippine Marines is serious in its endeavour to provide an alternative to peace especially in Mindanao, they are not departing from their original mission which is to provide a “combined arms units in the conduct of amphibious operations and other operations in support to the mission of the Philippine Navy.”
Now on its third year, the PMC’s Football for Peace program has delegations of football players, coaches and trainers coming in to Manila for the April 22 to 28 festival all the way from Sulu, Sultan Kudarat, Zamboanga, Tawi-Tawi, Cotabato, Misamis Oriental and Palawan where Marine battalion landing teams are based. The Basilan team, where no marine battalion is currently based, was sponsored by Philippine Army Colonel Tiny Perez of the 18th Infantry Battalion. Team members come from Unkaya Pukan Municipality where only a few weeks ago skirmishes with the Abu Sayyaf group resulted in the death of 18 government troopers. This year’s football players numbering about 145 also included kids from schools and local government units in the National Capital Region, including a united Marikina team, and teams from Ateneo and Xavier schools.
In this year’s Football for Peace Festival, the kids aged 18 years old and below were again treated by the PMC to educational tours and friendship games. The children toured the PMC, Philippine Air Force, AFP and Mind museums and the Museo Pambata and Light and Sound Museum, watched a movie, and took a stroll at the Luneta Park as their final activity on their last day of stay before departing for their respective provinces.
Awarding of championship trophy and medals to Xavier School team, category 9 years old and under, during the Philippine Marine Corps Football for Peace friendship games held at the Bonifacio Naval Station parade ground on 26 April 2014. Photo courtesy of Lt Col Stephen Cabanlet (Philippine Marines)
What is undoubtedly the most memorable experience for the children participants, perhaps other than receiving awards for victory during the friendship games, is their close encounter with local football icons Phil and James Younghusband of Team Azkals and of the Younghusband Football Academy for a football clinic with the Meralco Sparks in the Emperador Stadium at the Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. Phil Younghusband personally gave a pair of cleats or spiked shoes to female football player and PMC scholar Sharifa Mae from Sulu. During the friendship games at the Bonifacio Naval Station parade ground on Saturday, the kids also went agog by the presence of Azkals Philippine football team captain Chippy Caligdong.
The football for peace program has as its major partner the One Meralco Foundation (OMF), which is the social development arm of Meralco, and the Loyola Meralco Sparks Football Club (LMSFC). Football for Peace participants also received school kits from TV 5’s Alagang Kapatid and books, shirts and athletic tapes from Children International.
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