Monday, October 26, 2008 'Nothing we can do' By Marian C. Baring Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation may have handed down a decision to not allow its teams to take part in the Visayas Amateur Athletic Association, its rival league, but if schools officials still decide later on to let its teams compete, then it becomes a different story.
For University of the Visayas head coach Elmer “Boy” Cabahug, if he is given a choice, he will let his wards play.
“Since the board decided on it, then us coaches do not really have the power to object to that. Of course we have to follow them because there are those with the higher power who decide whether we play or not,” said Cabahug.
Cabahug added that his troops also has a reputation to uphold as they also want to defend their title in the VAAA.
“It is also good to play against another set of team to test the team’s skills against a non-Cesafi team,” Cabaug added.
The board agreed 6 to 1 during its meeting last Thursday that Cesafi-member schools will not be allowed to join the VAAA as the schedules are in conflict with that of the Partners Cup, which is a Cesafi event.
Other than this, Cesafi is also making sure that there won’t be a downtime for the players as they listed several events to keep them busy until next season.
Despite this, Cabahug said that if the UV top honchos will decide to allow them to take part in the VAAA, they will.
“If the UV owners tell us to join, we still will,” said Cabahug. It became an issue last time when the school owners decided to let the team join a competition that Cesafi was totally against and the school was not punished for doing so.
Schedule
The VAAA had already set up a schedule for the upcoming season and UV, Southwestern University, University of San Jose Recoletos and University of San Carlos were already bracketed.
It is not sure how Cesafi’s stand will affect VAAA and calls and text messages to Councilor Yayoy Alcoseba, the founder of VAAA, went unanswered yesterday.
The VAAA also has teams from other universities from neighboring provinces like Asian College of Technology, AMA- Ormoc City. Bohol Institute of Technology, SIT, Western Leyte College, Asian College State of Arts and Trade of Dumaguete City.
Meanwhile, Cabahug lauded Cesafi for allowing its players to compete abroad. Cabahug said that credit should also go to Butch Pichay and Chao Sy, who are associated with the embattled Basketball Association of the Philippines-Samahang BAsketbol ng Pilipinas, who invited Cesafi to compete in Hong Kong.
A select few will be flying to Hong Kong later this year to compete with other teams from neighboring nations. The team will be coached by Cabahug and USJ-R’s Edito Salacot.
On the other hand, a school official defended Cesafi commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy, who Alcoseba accused of having pressured the schools heads into barring the Cesafi members from joining the VAAA.
“The school heads are the ones who voted for that decision. And during the board meeting, Tiukinhoy just listened to the proceeding and never uttered a word,” the official, who requested anonymity said.
“It is just unfortunate that Tiukinhoy is the one who relays these information to the media, thus he gets the blame,” the official added
