MANILA, 23 February 2007 — There’s reason to rejoice, and still a lot to be worried about.
The international federation (FIBA) lifted its close to two-year suspension on the Philippines on Wednesday, making the country eligible to again compete internationally and hopefully, achieve that long-cherished Olympic cage dream.
Now that’s something to crow about.
But after a long hiatus and with the national basketball program back-tracked by ages after the leadership squabble in the sport, one would be left to ask whether or not the Philippines is ready to even chase that dream.
Manny V. Pangilinan, the telecommunications tycoon who turned every stone and made all the efforts to make this happen, spoke in a recent press conference with profound joy.
He united the basketball front — albeit with a little delay — and succeeded in putting focus back in the sport the Filipinos love.
The lingering image of Fiba secretary-general Patrick Baumann as a hard and unreasonable man to convince has also been erased, with the good Fiba official informing Pangilinan and the newly-formed and POC-recognized BAP-SBP being accommodated into the international federation.
“It is my pleasure to confirm to you that the Tokyo agreement has been complied with, and, as a consequence, the suspension on the Philippines is lifted,” said Baumann in a letter to Pangilinan, also the president of the BAP-SBP.
The Tokyo agreement was struck last year, when Pangilinan and other members of the SBP and BAP met there. Several points were demanded by Baumann to be satisfied, among them the creation of the three-man panel which Pangilinan headed.
A Unity Congress among all basketball leaders last Feb. 5 clinched the reinstatement, and paved the way for the Philippines to resume a program that was sidetracked last year.
Chot Reyes will most likely call the shots for the first RP Team that plays after the suspension, and that would be in Malaysia sometime in May, in the Southeast Asian Basketball Association which is the qualifier for the Fiba-Asia tournament in Japan .
The Fiba-Asia tournament will, in turn, be the qualifying event for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, where a total of three countries from Asia — not two — will be admitted as the region’s representative.
China, bannered by the likes of Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi, is already seeded into the tournament proper being the host.
And that will leave two more slots available with the Philippines likely to contest an Olympic slot with Japan and Korea and a host of Middle Eastern countries that have souped up in the last 10 years.
“It’s definitely good news for us,” Norman Black, the multi-titled former PBA coach told Arab News. “Yes, we definitely have the material to make the Olympics, but time is our primary obstacle right now.”
Black is a member of the national team coaching staff and the former Detroit Piston in the NBA is optimistic of the country’s chances, especially if a team can be made to prepare at the soonest possible time.
The PBA, incidentally, has approved to lend its players to the national cause whenever needed, even in the Seaba where competition is not that strong.
“We need to prepare the team as one, in my opinion,” Black added.
A team that plays together longer logically has a better shot at winning — inferior competition or otherwise.
And the prospect of having players like Danny Seigle, Eric Menk, Mark Caguioa, Asi Taulava and Kelly Williams, among others, can certainly make anyone who knows his basketball drool.
Rudy Hatfield, the best rebounder in the on-going Philippine Cup, is one of those players who have expressed willingness to don the Philippine tricolors.
The country has potentially an explosive lineup, and Black believes that finishing second in the Fiba-Asia tournament, hence an Olympic slot, is an achievable objective from where he is sitting.
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Black said. “We have a lot of great ballplayers who are willing to play their roles when called upon.
“Certainly, the ideal set-up would not necessarily be a true all-star team, but one that would make all the pieces fall into place,” said Black, who called the shots for a national team that played in the Hiroshima Asian Games.
“But the coach might have other things in mind.”
Curiously, it was also during the Seaba tournament in Malaysia in 2005 that the Philippines ‘ international shame started, when organizers denied the Filipinos the chance to play after the BAP had inadvertently sent them there without prior POC clearance.
That being as it may, it seems like poetic justice that the Philippines gets to return to the international scene via the same tournament where humiliation started.
And what a sight it could be, when everyone that stands in the way gets bamboozled by a Philippine side that will definitely be teeming with talent and determination.
Here is a chronology of events that led to the suspension of the Philippines from the fiba until the eventual reinstatement as compiled by Arab News:
September 2003: The RP-Cebuana Lhuillier team coached by Aric del Rosario placed 15th out of 16 teams in the FIBA-Asia Championship in Harbin , China , a qualifying tournament for the 2004 Athens Olympics.
May 2004: The MediaTrix-sponsored team made up of players from the Philippine College of Criminology (PCCr) finished dead last in the 10-team FIBA-Asia Champions Cup in Dubai .
April 10, 2005: The RP-Cebuana Lhuillier Team coached by Boyzie Zamar, preparing for the 23rd SEA Games, lost to lowly Paranaque Jets, 63-56, in the Spring Cooking Oil-NBC Final North pre-season basketball title at the Rizal Coliseum.
April 13, 2005: The setback of the RP Team to the Jets prompted POC President Peping Cojuangco to call for an improvement on the national team, tapping Coach Chot Reyes. The agreement was approved by the BAP. One week later, the BAP reneged on its agreement with the POC, which drew the ire of the Olympic body. Because of that, the POC suspended the BAP.
June 2005: Former senator Joey Lina was elected as BAP president.
June 30, 2005: The POC General Assembly, which has 38 national sports association members, expelled the BAP as its member with a 36-0 vote, with one abstained (baseball) and one absent (boxing).
July 3, 2005: Because of the POC expulsion, FIBA suspended the country from all sanctioned international tournaments.
Aug. 2005: Backed by the POC, the four major stakeholders — PBA, PBL, NCAA and UAAP — formed Philippine Basketball Federation with former FIBA-Asia secretary-general Moying Martelino as president.
September 2005: The POC, led by Cojuangco, went to Geneva , Switzerland . An agreement was reached for the four stakeholders and Lina to create a new basketball body.
Lina, however, refused to sign on the memorandum and the draft for a new body did not push through.
October-December 2005: The national team missed the 2005 SEABA Championship and the 23rd SEA Games here.
April 4, 2006: The four stakeholders and POC top officials met with Baumann in Seoul , South Korea , but the suspension. Baumann told the group to stay the course in in effort to form a unified group.
Aug. 22, 2006: The four stakeholders — PBA, PBL, NCAA and UAAP created another association named as Pilipinas Basketball. Bernie Atienza of the NCAA was elected president.
Aug. 28, 2006: The BAP and PB agreed to merge and create a unified body by signing a ‘communiqué’ in Tokyo during the 2006 World Basketball Championship. Witnessing the accord were FIBA and POC representatives.
September 2006: Following the Tokyo agreement, the BAP’s Lina and PB’s Atienza tapped businessman Manny V. Pangilinan as head of the three-man panel.
The panel created the Constitution and By-Laws that led to the SBP, which it registered to the Securities and Exchanged Commission (SEC).
Oct. 9, 2006: Lina resigned as BAP president when the POC allegedly rejected him to be the SBP head.
Oct. 11, 2006: Sen. Estrada replaced Lina when he was unanimously elected as BAP president.
Dec. 24, 2006: Pangilinan and Estrada met in Hong Kong where they came to terms to be the chairman and president of the SBP, respectively. The move peeved the BAP executive board.
Dec. 29, 2006: The BAP executive board sacked Estrada as president.
Jan. 19-21, 2007: Led by Pangilinan, the SBP went to Geneva , Switzerland to meet with top FIBA officials. There they were given the green light to hold the Unity Congress.
Jan. 27, 2007: The BAP unanimously elected athletics chief Go Teng Kok as president in an executive board meeting at the Century Park Sheraton. The BAP threatened to boycott the congress.
Feb. 3-4, 2007: Pangilinan and SBP prime movers were given the assurance by FIBA Secretary-General Patrick Baumann that the congress would pave the way for the lifting of suspension.
