Onyok Velasco, Ramon Fernandez among latest PH Sports Hall of Fame inductees

Metro Manila, Philippines – Olympic silver medalist and boxer Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco Jr. and basketball icon Ramon Fernandez are among the latest athletes set to be inducted into the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame with the enshrinement ceremony to be held on May 20, the Philippine Sports Commission announced on Monday, April 13.

Also set to be immortalized are Adeline Dumapong-Ancheta (para powerlifting), Beatriz Lucero Lhuillier (gymnastics and taekwondo), Cecil Valdeavilla Mamiit (tennis), Eduardo Alvir Pacheco (basketball and football), and Isidro del Prado (athletics). 

“The Philippine Sports Hall of Fame is more than an honor roll of medals. It is a living ledger of greatness to honor those who have defined what it means to be Filipino in sport,” PSC Chairman Patrick Gregorio said as he led the announcement.

Velasco was the country’s second Olympic silver medalist in 1996 in Atlanta, USA. He was also a two-time Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medalist and an Asian Games gold medalist.

Fernandez won 19 PBA titles – the most in league history – and gold medals with the men’s national team in the 1972 FIBA Asia Under-18 Championship and 1973 FIBA Asia Championship. Recently, the PBA Finals Most Valuable Player award was named in honor of him to honor his greatness by the PBA Press Corps.

Lucero bagged two gold and three silver gymnastics medals in the 1987 SEA Games gymnastics, while also nabbing taekwondo bronze in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Pacheco was part of the national team that captured gold in the 1962 Asian Games and 1963 ABC Championship in basketball. He also competed with the men’s football squad in the 1954 Asian Games and 1968 Olympic qualification tournament.

Two-time Olympian Del Prado won four SEA gold medals, two gold medals in the Asian Championships, and a silver in the Asian Games.

Mamiit made a name for himself after a stunning victory over American tennis great Andre Agassi in an ATP tournament in 1999. He won six SEA Games gold medals and two bronze medals in the 2006 Asian Games.

Dumapong-Ancheta was the first Filipino medalist at the Paralympic Games, taking home a bronze in 2000.

The seven inductees, who will join 47 other local sporting legends in the exclusive club, will receive P500,000 each plus a trophy made by sculptor Leandro Baldemor.

The Philippine Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1999 through Republic Act 8757.