Unified cage front mulled

Top officials of the country’s major professional and amateur leagues will form the nucleus of the Basketball Association of the Philipines in a move that could finally resolve perennial problems relating to the country’s participation in major international competitions.

The sports bodies that have pledged to help rebuild the BAP, which had come under fire for its failure to form the best teams to the Asian Games and other international competitions, are the Philippine Basketball Association, Metropolitan Basketball Association, Philippine Basketball League and the country’s premier amateur leagues – the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the University Athletic Association of the Philippines.

To make this possible, BAP president Freddie Jalasco will appoint the five representatives to key positions. Under the BAP chapter only the president and chairman are elected by the board, while the president is given the power to appoint all his officials, from executive vice president to auditor.

Jalasco will appear today before the Weekly Sports Forum of the Philippine Sportwriters Association at the Holiday Inm Manila to elaborate on the basic agreements reached by the group.

The group, composed of Jalasco, PBA commissioner Jun Bernardino, MBA commissioner Ogie Narvasa, PBL commissioner Chino Trinidad and group consultant and former BAP secretary general Moying Martelino, met yesterday at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel.

The five leagues will be represented by their commissioners or officers of higher rank in the BAP. A member who attended the meeting said Trinidad will be named to the executive board, while Bernardino or PBA operations director Ricky Palou will serve as secretary general. Narvasa is already executive vice president of the BAP.

Representatives of the UAAP and NCAA will be assigned the positions of treasurer and auditor, to complete the key positions in the BAP.

Trinidad said the move is a big step in charting the course of basketball, where the PBA, PBL and MBA had always been at odds with the PBA on the latter’s policy of selecting the national teams to international competitions.

The BAP is the only body recognized by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to send a national team to FIBA-sanctioned international competitions like the Olympics, Asiad, SEA Games and the Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) championships.

The PBA, PBL and MBA, the main sources of national players, had been at odds with the BAP because they were not consulted in the selection of national players. As a result, there are many occasions when the leagues could not release their players since it would interrupt schedule in the season’s games.

The three bodies want an integrated policy not only of selecting the national team but also a long-range program of training for national players.

"Mr. Jalasco is the final piece (in the jigzaw puzzle)," said Trinidad. "It is important that the three big leagues threw their supoport behind Jalasco. We’ll have to do it now."

Trinidad said he does not see any reason why BAP chairman Lito Puyat would not support the re-organization.

"If he becomes a hindrance, he’s wrong. I hope he does not," said Trinidad.

Puyat, who has ruled BAP for over 20 years, has construed moves by the three major leagues wanting a hand in the selelection and training of national athletes as acts of interference.