Along a stretch of shoreline fronting the junction of Dauis and Tagbilaran City in Bohol is a gym that has become a birthplace of dreams.
By Liza Jaluag’s last count, close to a hundred kids have passed through the doors of the Bohol Weightlifting Team gym in search of coaching, guidance, a way out of poverty, and sometimes, even food—needs that Jaluag and husband Nick, a national coach assigned by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to do grassroots work in Bohol, try their best to provide.
It was with the Jaluags that most of the kids got their feet wet in weightlifting—some of them quite literally, as the gym is located in Purok 1, Roosevelt avenue in Dauis, behind a seawall that is sometimes defenseless against the swelling tides.
“During high tide, usually around June, July, August or even December, sea water flows into the gym,” Jaluag said, laughing. “Hidi got to experience that because she trained in our gym last August in preparation for the National Open,” she added.
Hidi is Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo, who joined the recent National Open in Bohol to cement her slot in the national team. While training at the Jaluags’ gym, Diaz noticed the worn-out mats comped from a competition. The weightlifting star and her husband, renowned coach Julius Naranjo, promised to help procure better ones.
‘Rolling’ gym
Such offers of assistance have buoyed the couple’s modest dream of sending athletes to the Batang Pinoy, a goal they started pursuing when Nick was assigned by the PSC to head Bohol’s weightlifting program. The couple decided to take the job a step further and created their own team, the Bohol Weightlifting Team.
“We started with a ‘rolling’ gym in 2013 (when) we would transport our old weightlifting equipment to a vacant area right beside the bridge,” Jaluag recalled of the empty lot used by fishermen to fix their nets beside their idle boats.
With Nick still working with the Philippine Coast Guard then, Jaluag handled most of the training, teaching young kids the basics of weightlifting. The nets nearby soon served another purpose as onlookers sat on them while watching the training and listening to Jaluag give pointers to the kids.
“We started teaching our nephew, then asked the children of our friends if they want their kids to be part of our team… so they can compete outside Bohol through the Batang Pinoy,” Jaluag recounted. “We told neighbors that instead of having their kids play basketball or, worse, just loiter around, why not join our team?”
Fortunate events
At the start, the couple would borrow an old weightlifting bar from a friend and use makeshift barbells made from a steel bar with cement plates on each end “for small kids.”
Back then, the couple would set aside part of Nick’s salary to fund their training program because they didn’t want to charge the students. But a series of fortunate events turned things around: Jaluag got pregnant, and Nick retired from the Coast Guard and received a tidy going-away package.
This time, there was enough to build a gym adjacent to their house and connected to their living room. “The lights of the gym are an extension of our living room lights,” Jaluag said, laughing.
As more young athletes walked into their gym, the Jaluags realized they could dream bigger and leave a more lasting imprint on them. “We saw how their lives were changed,” Jaluag said, adding that the athletes they had trained received scholarships from the Bohol Institute of Technology-International College. “We had athletes who eventually joined the police. Some found jobs abroad. Some worked overseas and then came back to live here again,” Jaluag said.
Rewarding
As one who saw her way through college as part of University of the East’s track and field team, Jaluag knows just how rewarding being a national athlete can be. The one-time middle distance runner in the UAAP became part of the first batch of female weightlifters who represented the country in an international meet.
Some of the couple’s trainees proved themselves heir to Jaluag’s feat, ending up as national athletes and reaching national team level like standouts Dave Lloyd Pacaldo and John Raphael Macato. Then there’s the Jaluags’ prized find, Vanessa Sarno, the teenager tagged as Diaz’s most likely successor, and a bright hope for future Olympic glory.
Before rising to become concurrent Asian seniors and juniors champion at 17, Sarno went through the roughest of times. Once, she told the Inquirer, she could not train because she had yet to eat a meal. With no food in the Sarno household that day, Jaluag packed a little meal for Sarno and her family, and sent her home.
“We just happened to have a little extra to share,” Jaluag said when reminded of the story.
The Jaluags always stress to the kids the importance of taking their training seriously. “I tell them they have to make it worth the extra electricity we pay for them because the gym’s power comes from our house, and we use a lot of lights during training,” she said jokingly.
The weightlifting project is something that the Jaluags pursue seriously as well despite making no profit from their gym. Jaluag recounted how they once had to pawn their motorcycle because they wanted to field their lifters in a Batang Pinoy competition in 2018, but received no financial support to do so. One of those athletes eventually won gold, and their expenses were reimbursed.
‘God is good’
Things have since become easier, with three of the Jaluag children becoming scholars in a science high school, and two others graduating with a nursing and an IT degree, respectively. Another child is taking up music at the University of the Philippines, while the youngest is in third grade.
“God is good,” said Jaluag, now 50. “He blessed us with bright and hardworking children.”
Pandemic
The Jaluags did not keep those blessings to themselves.
During the pandemic, as restrictions loosened up, the couple’s weightlifting gym opened its doors to national team hopefuls.
“We made sure that protocols were followed. We disinfected the equipment, scheduled training sessions and made sanitizers and hand soap readily available,” Jaluag said. “We didn’t want to waste more time because in training, every minute counts.”
The results followed.
In 2021, Sarno won two golds and a silver in the Asian youth championships.
In May this year, Sarno anchored a strong showing by the Philippine weightlifting team during the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games by winning the gold in the women’s 71-kilogram category in record fashion.
About two months later, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sarno captured three golds in the Asian youth championships.
More importantly, the Jaluags eventually welcomed young hopefuls back to their gym, keeping in line with government-mandated safeguards.
“It was important for us to do that for the kids. They still had no school that time and by training with us, we were able to stress the value of having a healthy body and also teaching them about the virus.”
The chance to change lives for the better continues to inspire husband and wife and the children who trek down the main road to the Jaluags’ gym, confident that more than lifting weights, they’re bound to lift themselves out of their hard life as well. INQ
