PDBF PROGRAMS FOR 2023

Reviving the PDBF National Selection Elite Team will reestablish the Philippines’ position as a premier dragon boat powerhouse in the world. 

In 2019, our grand comeback kicked off in the most competitive dragon boat tournament in the world, the IDBF World Dragon Boat Championships in Pattaya, Thailand on August 20 to 25, 2019. We sent the biggest delegation the Philippines has ever had which included athletes who competed in the premier, seniors, and para-dragons divisions. Overall, we bagged four silver and two bronze medals in this international dragon boat tilt. 

For 2023, the PDBF will once again send the best of our dragon boat athletes to the 16th IDBF World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Thailand.

National tryouts will be held for the PDBF Elite Dragon Boat Team, open to all dragon boat athletes from anywhere in the Philippines, provided the athletes are members of any PDBF-registered club team. They will be trained by a coaching staff pool composed of former national dragon boat coaches and athletes who still continue to coach and handle teams under the PDBF. The coaching staff will come from military clubs under PDBF, namely: the Philippine Army, the Philippine Navy, the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Coast Guard. 

The tryouts will also be open to the strongest dragon boat athletes from these military clubs and even civilians who can meet the rigid screening process that we have set for the PDBF selection team. The PDBF board shall have oversight of the entire operations and decisions of the PDBF coaching staff. Athletes will be admitted according to the guidelines set by PDBF board and the coaching staff. 

The training components of the program is initially set as follows:

A.  Boat training for five (5) hours a day, six (6) days a week

B.  Cross training

1.  Pool paddling and swimming

2.  Jogging / land training / conditioning

3.  Gym and weight training

C.  Headquarters / boarding house for athletes living in the provinces and places far from the training site 

Every year, the PDBF holds four legs or races (one for each quarter) of the annual Philippine Dragon Boat Regatta, which is the basis for the national rankings of all dragon boat clubs under the PDBF. Top teams are endorsed to international races, especially club crew world championships organized by the International Dragon Boat Federation. We also hold races in various provinces such as Ilocos Sur, Iloilo, Davao, Pangasinan, Cebu, Zambales, Bicol and many others. Every year, we hold around six races, in addition to those organized by the clubs under our federation. Each race is attended by at least 600 race participants, about 50 internationally-certified race officials and volunteers, and hundreds of sponsors and spectators from different parts of the country.

These races are primarily funded by race fees paid by the participants. However, race fees can hardly cover the expensive minimum requirements of staging a dragon boat race. For 2023, we intend to level up our dragon boat races with new equipment that come closer to international standards, as well as exciting and more tangible prizes for the winners. 

To determine national championships, the PDBF conducts four legs of the Philippine Dragon Boat Regatta. Best ranking teams are endorsed to top-caliber international races of the International Dragon Boat Federation. This does not include regional races which also cost more or less the same per race. The PDBF partners with various institutions and companies to come up with as many races as possible all over the Philippines. But for purposes of this proposal, we are proposing that the aforementioned amount be adopted for four races to cover at least all the legs of the annual dragon boat regatta. Total cost of these four races is estimated at P1,500,000.00.

The PDBF is committed to ensuring our athletes have much-needed equipment for racing and training. 

The PDBF currently has four (4) racing boats complete with equipment, race course buoys, finish poles, lane number boxes, communication radios, timers, mega phones and other basic equipment for running a dragon boat race. When there are several teams participating in a race and there is limited time to complete the races, we borrow boats from our member clubs to expedite our races. Items for a race that we do not have are rented or borrowed from our partners.

In terms of training, we have six usable long boats and two small boats for training shared by some 20 teams that train everyday at the PDBF dock site. The limited number of training boats cannot accommodate hundreds of paddlers training daily. They had to limit their training hours to just one hour a day to allow other teams to do boat training as well.

We are short of pontoons for racing and training. We are also working on the improvement of our modest dock site lent to us by the National Parks Development Committee. We are currently developing a masterplan for the development of a dragon boat center that can accommodate our hundreds of paddler members training every day, as well as our equipment while still maintaining the area clean, orderly and tourist-friendly. 

The current PDBF leadership believes that it is high time for a much-needed upgrade of our equipment for races and trainings. We are looking at ways to fund the acquisition of the following assets which we need to bring out the best in our dragon boat athletes and give everyone a memorable race experience similar to standards of international dragon boat tournaments.

The PDBF acknowledges talents of young and promising Filipino athletes from all over the Philippines. We support social empowerment initiatives through dragon boat. This year, we intend to expand PDBF membership and promotion of the sport to places outside Metro Manila. We want to promote grassroots development to provinces and we target the marginalized sectors of society who have immense potentials in excelling in dragon boating. Fishermen, farmers and local folks have physical strength and admirable drive to pursue this sport and we would like to give them a chance to try this sport. 

Right now, the PDBF has one PWD dragon boat member club and two youth clubs who will all be competing for their respective categories in the 2023 World Championships. In addition, the PDBf has three more provincial team members.

This program basically supports the establishment of local training platforms for our target beneficiaries. The objective is to introduce this sport to the youth and other locals interested to learn and try dragon boat. The training program is designed for four weeks but may be extended depending on the requirements of the power sponsor and upon mutual agreement with the community and other stakeholders. The entire program ends with an exhibition game among the participants who will race off against each other. By the end of the program, the newly formed dragon boat team will also become a member of the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation.

The program components include:

1.  Introduction to dragon boat

2.  Basic training and familiarization with the strokes and boat commands

3.  Actual boat training  

4.  Steersman and drummer’s training

5.  Cross training (land training, pool training, gym) and conditioning

6.  Athletic discipline and teamwork workshop

7.  Exhibition game