By Joel B. Belinan
Our fitness group, the Burnham Park Team, is continuously growing in number as our fellow sports enthusiasts have returned from their Covid-19 hiding holes. But what made me thankful the past two weeks was that some of our combat sports pillars have been coming around. And this is in spite of some harassment we encountered during the first weeks of the park’s reopening due to misinterpretations on the guidelines.
Our informal group is also referred to as Team Lallakay (Team of Elders) which is self-explanatory. In combat sports competitions we would be immediately disqualified due to advanced age.
Our team started small 13 years ago just to have a routine to sweat out. Now, so many are on that part of the park from all sorts of combat martial arts doing their thing from 6:30 to 9:30 every day during good weather. A drizzle would not be enough to discourage many who would take refuge under the view deck of the Burnham Lake. Not anymore just the pioneer elders. Now you see 6-year-olds up to those in the ripe old age of early 70s. Why? It is good for health. Those of us who cannot afford periodic medical check-ups and medicines have our work-out routines as substitute.
This past few weeks Manong Sonny Bugnosen, the eldest of the children of the late Mayor Jaime Bugnosen was able to maintain his regular appearance in the area. His purpose is to exercise through boxing as he had been doing before Covid-19 turned our lives upside down. It should be noted that Mng. Sonny is already 72 years old and is actually the oldest in our team. He, however, was a martial arts practitioner since childhood, since the 50s. He had been into Shotokan karate, kickboxing, boxing, arnis and swordsmanship.
At the start of the new millennium he started neglecting his martial arts routine. In 2005 he was diagnosed with a serious health problem and was actually told by his doctor that unless he does some drastic changes in his lifestyle, it will deteriorate rapidly. It happened that he attended a conference of our Ananda Marga Yoga Organization in Laguna in April that year. During that event a monk of our group convinced him to re-start his sports routine to fight off his health problem. It was also in that conference during the sports hour that some of our boxers forced him to put on the boxing gloves and do a few rounds of pad work. When he came back to Baguio, he re-started his boxing routine with our Yoga Brother Edwin Aliong who himself was a former professional boxer and veteran kick-boxer. And true enough, after two straight years of regular exercise through boxing, his doctors declared him out of danger. Mng Sonny, however, due to his age has limited himself to boxing but his mere presence is a good inspiration to the younger ones in our team.
Another one who have been coming regularly to the park lately is Coach Danny Quinto, a former professional boxer and boxing promoter, a coach in the defunct Gintong Alay sports program during the Marcos era and also an amateur boxer in the Philippine Team. Now a total wellness advocate, Danny Quinto has been one of my regular senior partners during Saturdays and Sundays the past two weeks. Trained in Cuban boxing and Australian boxing, he had been showing us some moves rarely seen nowadays even in international caliber events. Danny Quinto at 70 remains an advocate of the proper boxing form and footwork. And whenever he does his pad work where I am always happy to be his pad holder, the younger boys and girls doing their routine could not help but be amazed on his speed and form.
Another famous personality in sports is Coach Glicerio “Boy” Catolico Jr, a former amateur and professional boxer, and a former national coach of our Philippine Women’s Boxing Team and Vietnam Women’s Boxing Team. While I was not able to confirm his age, reliable informants say he is 64-66 years old. He usually comes to the park with his wife, daughter and a couple of his former students who are either coaches in the universities or big gyms in town. While he spent almost all his life in boxing, he told me that he started as a karate practitioner. An Ilongo but has been a Baguio resident since attaining adulthood, Coach Boy as we call him is considered one of the pillars of amateur boxing in the country as he had been imparting his skills and knowledge to the Philippine Team boxers, the University of Baguio Boxing Team and to those in some local gyms. In 2012, he was hired by the Vietnamese Government to coach their national women’s boxing team and he stayed there for 7 years as a coach. His presence in our team during Sundays usually invites the attention of our young players especially when he is heard giving some tips. I was lucky to have had a chance to don gloves for a couple of rounds on his pad work styles which gave us a glimpse of real tactical boxing.
It would be an injustice if I finished my column without mentioning our so called Burnham Park Team poster boy (or is it poster man), Mr. Michael del Rosario. A well-known successful businessman who is now 66 years old, and the most regular guy in our favorite spot every day since 2014. Unlike the three earlier guys I mentioned, Sir Mike did not build his career in sports but since he started doing exercises with us he never missed a day whenever the weather permitted. He does some fitness boxing but also does some kicking routines, he having had some taekwondo and karate lessons during his younger days. He told me once that before his regular Burnham Park routine, he had to have regular visits with his doctor at least once every couple of months. “Now I only see my doctor every six months,” he said. Sir Mike’s presence usually attracts the curiosity of some joggers and walkers who know him.
The four guys earlier mentioned are a testament that the simplest way to maintain one’s health is through exercises. (To be continued next week).**
