LEGAZPI CITY — Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has hailed the performance of the Albay sports delegation for winning the 2025 Palarong Bicol championship, a decade or so after his legendary Team Albay lorded over the regional games successively in 2011, 2012 and 2014, when he was governor.
In this year’s recent Palarong Bicol, Albay garnered 76 gold medals , 81 silvers and 82 bronzes in the final tally of the games hosted by Legazpi City. The Albay team bested 12 other contingents.
Salceda said the recent victory once more awakens the “intrinsic strength of the Albayano team.” He vows to push more support for the sports well-being of the Albayano athletes, as one among the priorities of his Global Albay program when he returns as governor of Albay this year.
“Physical superiority, intellectual superiority and their derivative strengths that spring from unity in passion and pursuit of goals, pride of place, competitive spirit and inner character explain it all,” he once said of Albay athletes.
When he was governor, Salceda had campaigned for wider support for Albay ‘sports well-being’ program, and had lobbied for bigger budget for the training, food and allowance, incentives and the materials needed by the team to further boost their morale.
In 2017, Salceda organized what was then the largest sports tournament in the country, with 161 teams participating from all over the country, with 1,930 players, 320 coaches. The games were played in different venues around Albay.
More impressive yet was Salceda’s Basketball Congressional Cup tournament in 2019 which surpassed the record above by attracting 356 teams from around the country involving more or less 7,000 players, coaches and trainers. It was a kind of game that was never before hosted by any province in the country.
