Festive, PH-inspired opening rites highlight …KARATE ONE - YOUTH LEAGUE MANILA 2026

FESTIVITY and colorful Filipino-inspired opening ceremony featuring a psychedelic laser show will highlight Day 2 of the Karate One-Youth League presented by the Philippine Sports Commission today at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

"We will have a unique, Filipino-inspired opening ceremony that will be colorful, festive and captures the youthful drive of this tournament that will resonate with our participants," said Karate Pilipinas Sports Federation, Inc. president Ricky Lim.

"Due to the limited time, opening rites will have a parade of flags of all the 59 participating nations with one representative each then followed by a lively musical tableau featuring drum beaters and dancers in ethnic attire," Lim said.

He said that the focus of the entire program also supported by the SM Group of Companies and the Philippine Olympic Committee will be the laser show "that will display the logo of the event, host, WKF and Karate Pilipinas.

"We devoted a great deal of time and effort in putting up this colorful laser show that our young karatekas can readily relate to," stressed the karate honcho of one of the high points of the international youth karate meet also supported by Milo, Lanson's Place and Citadines Bay City Manila.

Invited to grace the occasion are POC president Abraham "Bambol" Tolentino and Senators Pia Arroyo and Christopher "Bong" Go, who are also supporters of the four-day championships.

Lim encouraged local fans to watch the top notch karate action featurihg aspiring karatekas from 59 countries worldwide, revealing that price of tickets were marked down and pegged at P300 each for the rest of three days.

"This is a huge chance for our local sports fans to witness karate at its best among the young for the remaining three days, an opportunity that they would not want to miss," he said .

Malaysian Asian Karate Federation chief Vincent Chen has given the local organizers led by Lim the thumbs-up at the start of the competition yesterday, declaring that "this more than we asked for. I fully trust Lim and his organizing team and I have no complaints."

Chen proudly pointed out that global youth karate festival sanctioned by the World Karate Federation was the first in Southeast Asia "so this is a great boost to the grassroots sports development of our member countries.

"We have around 40 Malaysian karatekas competing in this tournament. We would have had limited number if this was in Europe. They can now be exposed to high level performances from young karatekas worldwide."

Karate Pilipinas president Ricky Lim