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Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Oyson: POC seeks enlightenment
By Manuel N. Oyson Jr.
Counter punch
I said it before and I say it again. Basketball is the only glamour sport in the country. Self-proclaimed leaders in the sport fight to keep their post. There is money in it. That is why we have the Philippine Basketball Association whose member teams enlist the services of talent-laden players who can name their own price.
They include foreigners, Fil-Ams, Fil-Shams, Fil-Tongans. Or whatever appropriate name they should be called. Whatever happened to the recommendation of the two committees in the Philippine Senate, which conducted thorough hearings on their eligibility to suit up in the PBA? Poor Senators Robert Barbers and Edgardo Angara. The joint recommendation for the deportation of a number of Fil-foreigners in the pro league because they do not have any Filipino ancestry or blood kin, has been put in the freezer.
WASTE. Their joint probe was an exercise in futility, a waste of people’s money. The Department of Justice has not initiated moves to file deportation proceedings against them. The hands of PBA commissioner Noli Eala are tied. He cannot on his own ask them to go back home unless these Fil-Ams are given their day in court, he explains. That is due process, he adds.
The PBA Fiesta Cup is underway and they are playing and prancing merrily along at the Araneta Coliseum to stamp their contempt for our Senate. Basketball is our number-one indoor sport and entertainment spectacle. That makes cycling the biggest outdoor spectator sport. No wonder, Graham Lim and company refuse to hedge from their roost at the Amateur Basketball Association of the Philippines, despite a court ruling that the BAP Inc. is the legitimate amateur basketball body.
MEDITATION. POC president Celso Dayrit has taken the neutral ground and has flown to Switzerland to consult the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) moguls on who to recognize between Lim and Tiny Literal on one hand and Bapi’s Nic Jorge on the other. A few hours of deep meditation in the summit of the freezing Alps may give him the enlightenment to resolve the conflict that has turned RP basketball into an arena of leadership conflict.
PSC chair Eric Buhain shares the same thinking. He said that he is not going to release any funding unless the Lim-Jorge row has been resolved. Lim is not bothered. He said the BAP of which he is the secretary-general could do it alone. He even sneered at any reinforcement in manpower from the professional league. He says he has found an angel in Cebuana-Lhuillier.
NOT CHINA. That is why he said that with the pawnshop chain’s funding support, the Philippines would be prepared to defend its championship next year in Manila, as it won in Vietnam. The BAP has started with the Try-Outs Ng Bayan to search for players to join the pool for the Jones Cup, ABC Championships, World Youth cagefests in Teheran, and the Seag. What about badminton, athletics, boxing, bowling, gymnastics and tennis? Do they not also need to be revitalized?
The Philippine Tennis Association is also for the elite, it seems. Hasn’t it heard of the sensational Bernardine and sister Sally Mae Siso who have been making waves in the 10-Under Age Group in tennis for months? Why haven’t they been recruited into the national pool where they can be trained professionally in Manila, instead of letting their father, who earns only enough as a reporter for Sun.Star SuperBalita, go it alone in Cebu? Is it because the Philippines is not China where table tennis, gymnastics and platform diving are the rage?
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The BAP is the only basketball association organized by the Fiba and we will never allow other groups to wrest that authority from us.” – BAP’s Tiny Literal.
(mno@sunstar.com.ph)
(March 2, 2004 issue)
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