The Philippine Sports Commission is set to hold the Luzon leg of the Indigenous Peoples (IP) Games in Salcedo, Ilocos Sur on April 19-20.

The PSC, which has been organizing the tournament since 2018, is planning to take the Visayas and Mindanao legs in Bacolod and General Santos, respectively, while a fourth one is being explored for the Bangsamoro region.

“We are expecting to see a bigger number of participants this year, well over a thousand for all the three regional legs. We might even have an additional leg for Bangsamoro,” said PSC commissioner Fritz Gaston on Tuesday's PSA Forum.

In every leg, an IP Forum will be conducted where the importance of building communities and the need to promote their local culture are going to be tackled in partnership with National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) and local government units (LGUs).

“Ang objectives po kasi ng project ay mapagpatuloy ‘yong promotion and preservation ng [indigenous] games,” IP Games project head Elias Samorin said.

“Kasi ang project naman is for them to preservation ng cultural sports nila, kasi ‘yong games nila parang hindi games kasi sa kanila part of their living na ‘yon eh,” he added.

The IP Games will hold 10 Filipino indigenous sports which include Patalunton Match, Banga Relay (Men, Women) and Race (Individual), Lippay Battle, Sunay Spin Challenge, Gabbo (Category I, II), Sinangduan, Binnurang-itan, Bekang (Archery) and Pika (Javelin).

The tournament aims to cultivate and preserve some of the traditional games like pana, sumpit, kadang-kadang, javelin and trumpo.