Filipinos in the 2024 Paralympics

Following this year’s Olympics, six Filipino athletes are in Paris to go for gold at the 2024 Paralympics. This is the biggest contingent of Pinoy para-athletes to compete in the international games since 2012.

With the games already in progress, get to know the Pinoys competing in para swimming, para archery, para athletics, and para taekwondo on the global stage.

One of the country’s flag bearers, 56-year-old Agustina Maximo Bantiloc is the first Filipino para archer to make it to the Paralympics. The former powerlifter recently concluded her stint at the 2024 Paralympics with a season best of 618 points.

“I am happy with what I performed because I believe I did my best,” she told ABS-CBN following her match. She also promised to improve and likened her rising to challenges to how she put her three children through college.

Flag bearer Ernie Gawilan won the Philippines’ first gold medal in the Asian Para Games by being the fastest swimmer in the men’s 400m freestyle-S7 event in 2023. He is set to compete in the same event and in the 200m individual medley-SM7 in Paris.

The 2024 Paralympics will be Gawilan’s third time to compete among the world’s best para-athletes, having competed in the Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo Games. In Tokyo, Gawilan swam close to a podium finish, ending in sixth place in men’s 400m freestyle-S7.

Angel Otom will be making her world debut in the 2024 Paralympics. Currently a sports science major in the University of the Philippines–Diliman, the university’s first varsity para swimmer won four gold medals at the 2023 ASEAN Para Games.

As a swimmer, Otom wants to inspire other people with disabilities and young athletes to believe in themselves and persevere. “The most important thing in sports is that you’re having fun with what you’re doing,” she said.

After missing the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics due to the coronavirus, Allain Keanu Ganapin will make his debut at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. He will be competing in the men’s K44 -80kg event.

The Marikina native turned to taekwondo to overcome bullying, using his martial arts skills to earn his peers’ respect and change how they viewed him. Ganapin eventually joined the Philippine taekwondo team in 2016.

As a national athlete, he won a bronze medal each from the 2017 Oceana Para Taekwondo Open in Auckland, New Zealand and the 2021 Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Amman, Jordan.

Long-time para-athlete Jerrold Pete Mangliwan qualified for the 2024 Paralympics following his breathtaking win at the 2023 Asian Para Games, when the six-time ASEAN Games gold medallist beat Ueyonabaru Hirota in the men’s 400-meter T52 finals after initially trailing behind the Japanese racer.

Mangliwan had competed in four Asian Para Games before winning his first gold in October last year.

As of 9:33 p.m. of 30 Aug. 2024, Mangliwan won fourth place in the men’s 400m T52 qualifying event and has made it to the finals.

The 2024 Paralympics will mark Cendy Asusano’s debut in the world games. Asusano has won four gold medals in the ASEAN Para Games and recently reached fourth place in women’s javelin throw-F54 at the World Para Athletics Championships.

Besides javelin throw, Asusano is also a formidable shot-put athlete, having won a gold medal in the said event at the 2023 ASEAN Para Games.

The Paralympics have been running for 76 years since 29 July 1948, when Sir Ludwig Guttman held the Stoke Mandeville Games on the opening day of the 1948 London Olympics. Guttman had organised the games for World War 2 Royal Air Force veterans, providing 16 former pilots with spinal cord injuries a space to compete in archery and netball.

The Stoke Mandeville Games continued through the 1950s, eventually growing into an international event with hundreds of participants.

In 1960, the event gathered 400 para-athletes from 23 countries in Rome, Italy and became known as the quadrennial Paralympic Games. Organisers held their first winter para games in 1976.

Since 1988, the Paralympics have been held in the same city as the Olympics. That same year was also when the Philippines first joined the para games.

Since consistently joining the Paralympics in 2000, two Filipinos have won bronze medals:

• Adeline Dumapong – Dumapong won a bronze in women’s powerlifting in the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
• Josephine Medina – The late table tennis athlete Josephine Medina won the country’s second bronze in the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

Support the Philippines’ para-athletes at the 2024 Paralympics by watching the games live on the Paralympic Games’ official YouTube channel. To make sure you’re watching at the right time, check out our athletes’ schedules here.

Don’t watch alone! Make the games even more memorable by setting up a virtual watch party with friends and family in the Philippines and sending love with Kabayan Remit.

Kabayan Remit is a secure money transfer app that lets overseas Filipino workers safely send money from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States to major banks, e-wallets, and cash remittance centres in the Philippines, including:

• Bank of the Philippine Islands
• Metrobank
• Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation
• GCash
• Maya
• Cebuana Lhuillier 
• LBC
• Palawan Pawnshop

The app boasts bank-level security and encryption and is regulated in Canada and the UK by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and the Financial Conduct Authority, respectively.

You can even use the Kabayan Remit app to pay your bills and your SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions.

To explore Kabayan Remit’s features and exchange rates today, click here.

Our 24/7 bilingual customer support team is also available to assist you here.

And before you send your first remittance, make sure to brush up on the latest online scams and online banking security measures.

When you’re ready to get started, open a free account on the Kabayan Remit app and start sending love to the Philippines. Your first remittance is free!