AFTER its exceptional staging of the 5th Southeast Asian (SEA) V.League men’s tournament first leg, Candon City Mayor Eric Singson is confident their vibrant city can repeat its hosting success if the Philippines wins the bid to organize the 2026 AVC Women’s Nations Cup, through the support of the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF).
Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) and PNVF president Ramon “Tats” Suzara bared over the weekend that the country is eyeing to host the prestigious Asian competition slated June 6-13 next year as he was impressed with the well-managed competition and reception of the recently concluded SEA V.League at the Candon City Arena, Ilocos Sur.
This was the city’s first international volleyball tournament.
“The arena is not for a local event. It’s for an international event. Hindi ito pang local. It has to be an international event. We have to bring foreign guests, foreign teams here, foreign teams here. I didn’t expect this to be really big and I offered him (Singson) last night to host the 2026 AVC Women’s Nations Cup next year,” Suzara said during a press conference at the Hotel Van Gogh.
“Men ngayon, women naman next year and this will be 12 women’s national teams in Asia and sabi ko kay Mayor, so ikaw ang bida dito. Ikaw ang main,” he said.
Candon City is no stranger to hosting sports events as it hosted local pro basketball and volleyball leagues before, such as the PBA this year and the PVL last year.
“Pa-North na ang volleyball. With this, we have to improve our work so that we really deserve to host this kind of ball game. Hosting an international competition is really a challenging one, but we’ll take our swing at any kind of challenge, we will try our best and bring the best of it into the ball game,” Singson said.
He also shared that Candon City is looking to improve its venue, accommodations and logistics further to take care of the 12-nation field in the AVC Women’s Nations Cup and intensify volleyball tourism as well.
“Iyong dugout ng teams, we need to improve that to accommodate teams. Of course, nasabi kanina ni Mr. Suzara na if we can have the airplanes bringing down the teams to here, it will be easier for all the teams that will be coming in,” Singsong said. “We will try our best to rush our airport. It’s under construction, but I will try to ask the DOTR to help me out and do our part also as the LGU to manage the airport construction para mabilis iyong pagkagawa.
“This will be a big opportunity on our part. We are learning the ropes. This stint of SEA V.League ang umpisa on how to handle and host an international game. With Mr. Suzara with me, I’m confident we can do our part.”
