PBA’S COMMITMENT TO NAT’L TEAM MAY CONTINUE
TIANJIN – Powerade-Team Pilipinas coach Yeng Guiao’s call for the PBA to stay involved in forming the national team, endorsed earlier by Sta. Lucia Realty governor Buddy Encarnado, is about to reach a bigger audience.
PBA commissioner Renauld ‘Sonny’ Barrios said Sunday, on the eve of the national team’s closing game against South Korea in the 25th FIBA Asia Men’s Championship, that he will seek the opinion of the board of governors on what direction to take.
“Coach Yeng’s heart must have been touched by this experience and he has asked me in the nicest of terms to keep an open mind,” Barrios said.
Guiao has called on the PBA to stay active in forming the RP team, arguing that the best basketball talents in the country remain in the pro backyard.
“The PBA could not turn away from its responsibility,” said Guiao, stressing that only matured players – “aged 26 to 28” – can compete and have a chance against other Asian teams.
Guiao’s sentiments has received favorable response from Encarnado, who was responsible for the RP team’s seventh place finish in the 1991 Asian Basketball Confederation Men’s Championship in Kobe, Japan.
The Realtors governor told Guiao to submit a written program and pledged to have it calendared for discussion when the PBA board meets next month.
“Now is the time to strike while the iron is hot,” Encarnado said following the RP team's victory over Chinese-Taipei in the preliminary round.
National fervor, Barrios said, must have struck Guiao, “much the same way it has affected me.”
A self-proclaimed traditionalist and believer of the maxim laid down by the “league’s forefathers” that the PBA is “Filipino basketball by Filipino players for the Filipino people,” Barrios said an “exit plan” crafted for application after Tianjin continues to be in place.
But after seeing the teams from China, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon and South Korea, Barrios, who hollered himself hoarse rooting for the Nationals, said it has become clear where Guiao was coming from.
“Nanghihinayang siya kung hindi na natin ipapadala yung best players of the land,” Barrios said. “And I don’t think it was at all self-serving of him because he knows he’s not going to be coaching a national team anytime soon, if at all,”
In the event the PBA board – to which Talk ‘N Text’s Ricky Vargas, vice chairman of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, and JB Baylon, the Powerade-RP team manager belong – decides to put in abeyance the exit plan, then the matter will be brought up to the SBP, the national sports association for amateur basketball.
“For the longest of time, people have been saying that Philippine basketball has no long term program,” Barrios said. “But with the formation of the SBP and through the leadership and initiative of Mr. (Manny V.) Pangilinan, one is now in place and we have to thank him for that. So ayaw natin silang pangunahan.”
Though no international tournament is scheduled for the rest of the year, Barrios said he wants nonetheless to get a “reading from the board” on how to proceed.
“If they embrace that concept, then so be it,” he said. “Ipa-fine tune yung details in black and white, yung nitty-gritty, and then I will present it to the SBP.”
Barrios expressed confidence a common ground could be reached on the matter.
“With what SBP is doing and with the inputs of Coach Yeng, perhaps if we all talk together as Filipinos wanting to do good for the best of basketball, Filipino basketball, then we can most likely achieve something more than what we have achieved so far,” Barrios said.
just lend some pba players if needed that is the way to glory
yeng wag ka na maepal ok?>calling sir nards, whats the sbp"s stand on this?