BAGUIO CITY – The 3rd edition of the Baguio Day Fun Run for-a-Cause continues as a humanitarian feature of the Baguio Charter Day celebration when it fires off on Sept. 24 at Lake Drive in Burnham Park.
This time around, the initiator of the footrace intended as a fund drive for the growing number of dialysis patients in Baguio and Benguet will be among those at the receiving end.
City sports development officer III Gaudencio Gonzales said they chose newsman Ramon Dacawi as one of the primary beneficiaries of this year’s fun run as a way of giving back to the former city employee being the initiator of the activity.
Dacawi, former city public information officer who through his writings and other forms of intercession had helped countless patients in need of medical assistance since 1992, suffered kidney failure in 2014 and has since been undergoing hemodialysis four times every week. The weekly treatment coupled by other medical needs had drained his retirement fund.
In 2014 or a year to his retirement, Dacawi conceived the fun run to build a support fund for the kidney patients.
The activity was approved and launched that same year by Mayor Mauricio Domogan to give humanitarian dimension to the Baguio Day celebration and to keep alive the city’s theme of “Fostering a Culture of Caring” when it marked its 100 years in 2009.
The fun run generated P312,000 in its initial staging in 2014 and P160,222 in 2015 all of which went to supporting kidney patients in their change of fistula, hospitalization and other needs.
For the third edition of the run, Dacawi and the kidney patients will be joined by other ailing city government employees in the pool of beneficiaries. The city government beneficiaries will be selected in coordination with the LGU Baguio Employees Association Inc. headed by Marietta Alvarez.
The footrace will again be in three brackets – the 3K, 5K and 10K. Registration fees will be P50 for the 3K category, P100 for the 5K and P150 for the 10K.
Cash prizes are at stake for the top three finishers in the boy and girls categories in each bracket. Medals will also be awarded to the top ten finishers.
Registration will start on Sept. 5 at the City Sports Office at City Hall (Mondays to Fridays) and at the Sports extension office at the Swimming Pool Baguio Athletic Bowl at Burnham Park (Mondays to Saturdays). **Aileen P. Refuerzo