Tigbauan-based sports program lends out help amid COVID-19 pandemic

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

The NinjaNancyOsborne and Ninjacares basketball program, a Tigbauan-based sports program founded and organized by sports enthusiast Portia Bernil, lent their helping hand to the people of Tigbauan amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the supervision of Ronald Julaton, the sports program handed out relief goods to 200 families.

Every family received bags of canned goods, rice, and house necessities such as laundry soaps and hand soaps.

Aside from the basketball program that Bernil handles, her Ninjacares program also gives out free basketball equipment and apparel for those less-fortunate athletes she hones.

So in line with the cancelation of sports activities in the province of Iloilo due to the pandemic, Bernil decided to convert the funds allotted for the equipment and apparel to relief goods.

With the program running for already four years, Bernil and her basketball program’s main aim is to develop basketball skills with conditioning for them to grab tertiary scholarships through basketball.

For the meantime, it’s Julaton who continues to oversee the training and drills Bernil designed for the Tigbauan ninjas since she is based in the USA.

Bernil’s hard work paid off bigtime when 7 high school ninjas and 7 from college made it to college varsity teams.

“Main goal ko is to help them maka avail ng scholarship nila. Ang mga less fortunate players and naga excel sa ila school in games gina providan ko Nike shoes,” said Bernil in an exclusive interview with Daily Guardian.

In fact, 6 players from the Western Institute of Technology’s 2019 PRISAA men’s basketball championship squad came from the Tigbauan Ninjas.

Bernil’s burning passion for the game of basketball is never-ending, grabbing every chance she gets to attend basketball camps in the US in order to pass along the knowledge to the athletes she train.

“Gina gamit ko ang program nga na learn ko man sa hindi lang basta basta nga coach, ga camp gid ako. Aside sa impact by Joe Abunassar in Las Vegas, ga seminar ako sa USA team youth coaches,” added Bernil.