DAVAO CITY — Bearing the initials of the man they honored, the 19th GET Open Golf Tournament gets underway at the scenic Apo Golf & Country Club, Davao City on Sunday, June 17, 2007.
This is the longest-running golf event in Davao and Mindanao, UMBN executive Bong Gonzaga told events organizers and sports writers at the Tuesday forum of the Davao Sports Communicators Organization of the Philippines (Scoop-Davao) at the Royal Mandaya Hotel.
Organized in 1988, the 19th GET bears the initials of educator Guillermo E. Torres, founder of the Mindanao Colleges (MC) which is now the University of Mindanao and its sattelite media group the University of Mindanao Broadcasting Network (UMBN).
The golf tournament was primarily organized as a cause-oriented sports event to add more poor but deserving students as scholars in agronomy of the university’s own Mt. Apo Science Foundation. Gonzaga said the golf tournament has already to its credit some 120 graduates since its inception after the demise of its founder.
The tournament also serves as a fitting memorial to one of Mindanao’s visionary educator and sportsman Engr. GE Torres himself.
The University of Mindanao (UM) is a consistent producers of athletic champions and a major contributor to the Private Schools Athletic Association (Prisaa) whose president is Pedro San Jose currently Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs of the university. He is also head of delegation of the Davao-Prisaa teams that hit second place in the recent nationwide Palarong Pambansa in Iloilo City.
Its sattelite industry the UMBN are known for quality AM and FM radio programming and counts as among its successful disc jockeys Leonardo “Happy L.A.” Avila who is now a city councilor and Robert “Double R” Recede who is now a lawyer and serves as one of the executives of the radio network.
Antonio M. Ajero who is now Publisher of Sun.Star Davao once served as Station Manager of the erstwhile DXMC (now DXUM) with Ely Luciano as his program director, now managing editor of SuperBalita, the Cebuano edition daily newspaper also of the Sun.Star Davao Publishing, Incorporated.
Secretary Jess Dureza, formerly presidential assistant for Mindanao and one of the peace makers of the Gloria Arroyo administration at one time served as editor of the pioneering print media organization, the Mindanao Times.
GE Torres for which the GET Golf Classic stands for was this region’s progenitor not only of countless educated citizens but also of trained multi-media practitioners. (PIA) davaotoday.com
