DURING my elementary and teenage years, I was an avid basketball fan rooting for San Miguel Beermen. From Nelson Asaytono and Allan Caidic to Danny Seigle and Danny Ildefonso, my week was not complete without watching their games on TV.
My fanaticism died a natural death when the batch of the two Danny's retired. However, my love for basketball and the Beermen still lingers in my psyche. Whenever I get to watch the games, I think I still have the young basketball fan in me that my kids wonder how I could get a strong grasp of the game.
The world of sports was also one of the areas badly hit by the pandemic. With the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) lurking around us, it was an easy decision to suspend all games both indoor and outdoor. When the Philippine Basketball Association launched the PBA Bubble in Clark at the same time in 2020, Kapampangans were indeed privileged and proud to be chosen as the venue for staging the most popular game in the country.
The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and Clark Development Corporation (CDC) worked together to ensure the success of the bubble set-up in Clark, Pampanga and made the long-awaited restart of the 2020 PBA Philippine Cup possible.
This year, Kapampangans are once again in for a treat (virtually) as the PBA chose the Don Honorio Ventura State University (DHVSU) to be the venue of the basketball matches. This is in compliance with the condition set by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) that the league will only play in areas under a standard general community quarantine (GCQ) or lower.
The PBA released the schedule of games on August 31 with the following matches on the first day, September 1: TNT vs. Blackwater, San Miguel vs. Terrafirma, and Magnolia vs. Meralco. The games in the All-Filipino Conference will now be held five times a week. Aside from triple-headers on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, two games will be played on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Schedules will be released week-by-week every Tuesday since it will all depend on RT-PCR tests results conducted every Monday. Antigen swab tests are also being administered every other day to add another layer of protection for the "semi-bubble" setup up north.