The Philippines maintained its hold on No. 4 in the medal race by winning medals in athletics, swimming and chess on Sunday, surpassing its previous finish of 13th.th ASEAN Para Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.
Clifford Trocino, Evnezar Celebrado and Cyril Cloyd Ongcoy won gold medals in centerpiece track and field, while Gary Bezzino won his fourth gold medal in the pool.
FIDE Masters Sandor Severino and Darry Bernardo won a gold medal each in individual men's PI and B2 rapid chess respectively, increasing their total scores by three minutes.
Mr. Trochino dominated the men's 800-meter (m) T52 by clocking two minutes and .16 seconds, besting his countryman Jerrold Pete Mangalivan, who won his second silver medal in 2:00.73.
On his part, Mr Celebrado topped the men's 5000m T11 with a timing of 20:03.55, while Mr Ongkoy clocked 17:32.19 in the 5000m T12 to clinch his second gold medal in the biennial event.
Mr. Severino defeated Indonesian Azhar Panjaitan in the sixth and final round and then overcame another Indonesian, Maksum Firdaus, who finished first via tiebreaker, to win the gold medal by five points.
Mr Bernardo, in contrast, faced less trouble as he needed to split points in the last round with Indonesia's Adji Hartono to win the gold medal by 5.5 points, or clear full points over Indonesians Guyuh Satrio and Mr Hartono, who settled for silver and bronze respectively.
Those wins kept the country in fourth place with 37-gold, 27-silver and 43-bronze medals behind Thailand (155-145-135), Indonesia (117-113-95) and Malaysia (56-56-63).
It also eclipsed the country's 33-gold, 33-silver, 50-bronze tally for a fifth-place finish in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three years ago. — joey villar