At A Glance
- The Philippine Esports Organization is confident its Sibol Mobile Legends: Bang Bang teams can deliver medals in the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand.
The Philippine Esports Organization is confident its Sibol Mobile Legends: Bang Bang teams can deliver medals in the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand.
Speaking to members of the press during the Philippine team SEA Games send-off last weekend, PESO executive director Marlon Marcelo said he is hopeful that Sibol would continue to bag medals despite only participating in two esports titles in this year’s edition.
Aside from the two MLBB teams, PESO is only sending a team to the Arena of Valor while the national team will be skipping the FreeFire and FC Online.
“It's just a matter of prioritizing our resources on which games we are most likely to win,” explained Marcelo.
“Fingers crossed, we want to make sure that we have at least 3 out of 3 podium finishes for our NSA,” he added.
Esports have been a source of medals for Team Philippines in the past editions of the biennial meet, particularly in MLBB where the country has consistently produced world champion teams.
The Sibol MLBB men’s team, for one, is gunning for a fourth straight gold in the tournament while the women’s side is seeking redemption after settling for a silver last time out.
“We want to defend the gold medal. It's going to be the fourth straight time. Historically, it's difficult. But we are still confident due to our sustained excellence. We know our athletes are world-class. Especially on MLBB. No pressure. We want gold,” Marcelo said of the men’s team which will be composed of the members of Team Liquid, a professional team that is gunning for Golden Road in the upcoming M7 World Championships in January.
“On the women's side, we want revenge. You would know that we actually came from a disheartening loss. We went to silver. We want to get the gold as well,” he added.
Marcelo admitted that projections for the AOV team weren’t as high especially with host Thailand, historically, the more dominant team in the title.
But the esports body remained optimistic.
“AOV's side, it's a bit of a wild card just because Thailand is known to be very good. At least ML level on that specific kind of game.
But again, we're always hoping for the best,” he added.