DAVAO del Norte pride Christian Gian Karlo Arca, the country’s newest International Master, lived up to expectations by delivering the first gold medal in the ongoing 2025 Batang Pinoy Chess National Finals in General Santos City.
But his golden debut did not go to his home province. This year, Arca is representing Zamboanga City in the nationwide grassroots competition for student-athletes and out-of-school youth 17 and under.
“Wherever the support is, that’s where we go. The life of an athlete in the Philippines is tough — most of the time it’s self-funded,” said his father, Arman, in an earlier interview with Gold Star Daily.
Arca’s triumph in the boys’ under-16 standard event was far from a walk in the park. He nearly dropped his seventh-round match against Mark Gabriel Usman of Laguna, who capitalized on a rare misstep by the top seed to gain a material advantage heading into the endgame.
“He miscalculated in the middlegame. He was tired — the boy had no sleep,” said Arman, who accompanied his son the night before for some “chess hustling” inside the General Santos mansion of Manny Pacquiao, even playing the Filipino boxing icon in a friendly match.
With Usman sensing a major upset over a former world blitz champion, Arca dug deep into his vast international experience to salvage a hard-earned draw.
He then swept his last two matches to clinch the crown in a chess program loaded with more medal events — including rapid, blitz, Chess960, ASEAN and team formats — at Robinsons Place GenSan through Oct. 31.
