FOUNDERS RUN MOVED TO AUGUST 9

June 28, 2025 Community Billboard

FOUNDERS. Two of the University of Baguio volleyball players pose in front of the mural of UB founder Fernando Bautista Sr. and the Team Lakay before some of them left to form Lions MMA.

Jayson Jaylo

BAGUIO CITY

Organizers have decided to move the Founders Run to August 9. “It will be better to move it to at least a month later,” said race director Stephen Felices after directing the Cosplay Run last Sunday at the Baguio Country Club which was the second of his Team Malaya’s runs this month. The Team was in Hungduan, Ifugao last June 8 where they staged the Rice Terraces Marathon in Hungduan last June 8 in partnership with the Department of Tourism – Cordillera. “We are really short on time, so we need to postpone it to August 9 instead,” Pigeon Lobien of MSD and e-Pub Heroes.

The run will honor two of the Baguio-Benguet Educational Athletic League founding schools and their founders – University of the Cordilleras the late Benjamin Salvosa and University of Baguio and the late Fernando Bautista, Jr. It aims to raise funds for the sports league and the Heroes Wall of Fame mural project at the Baguio Athletic Bowl. “We need to finish at least 40 more, while 28 need funding and the remaining have been paid off,” said Lobien, who started the project in 2021 with artists and former mixed martial arts fighter Harold Banario, Gladys Labsan, and Ged Alangui.

Labsan actually is almost done with the running wall portion, a seven-wall section at the top of the grandstand extension. It features 26 former national team members, among them Southeast Asian Games medalists and current international athletes like Sandi Menchi. The event is in partnership with incoming councilor Paolo Salvosa, a grandson of the UC founder, the Mountain Men Creations Co., and Waynasdi Photography. It is also backed by Sizzling Plate, Brixium, Baguio Center Mall, as well as councilors Vladimir Cayabas, Leandro Yangot, Jr., and Maximo Edwin, Jr.

Pigeon Lobien / ABN