Not about Santos

University of the Philippines (UP) Chancellor Dr. Emerlinda Roman was on the line the other day to explain that the protest she filed before the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Board goes beyond questioning the eligibility of Far Eastern University (FEU) seniors basketball player Arwind Santos.

It’s not about Santos, she said. It’s about how the UAAP Board conducts itself as "an Old Boys Club without any serious regard for rules, procedures and proper decorum." Dr. Roman called the protest filed last Aug. 16 as "a good wake-up call for all of us."

Of course, Santos is in the swirl of the raging controversy. Dr. Roman said Santos played in the Cebu Basketball League (CBL), which she described as a commercial league, in February to March this year, and should’ve been required to establish a one-year residency before being allowed to suit up for FEU as a rookie.

FEU representative Anton Montinola, however, said the CBL isn’t a commercial league. Besides, he added, Santos’ case was submitted to the UAAP Board for review before the season and his eligibility was cleared. There was full disclosure and transparency in divulging Santos’ playing history, stressed Montinola.

Dr. Roman said she read in the papers that UAAP president Celerino (Sonny) Paguia, Jr. of host school National University (NU) invited her to attend the next Board meeting so she could be briefed on the rationale behind Santos’ clearance. Dr. Roman told The STAR she never received such an invitation. Instead, she was sent a letter by Paguia informing her that her protest was considered an appeal and had been rejected with finality.

Dr. Roman pointed out that Paguia’s letter only emphasized the need to review how the UAAP Board makes its decisions. She couldn’t accept Paguia’s explanation that the Board treated her formal protest as an appeal because it treated UP coach Allan Gregorio’s previous letter seeking a clarification on Santos’ status as the formal protest.

"The letter inquiry of…Gregorio dated Aug. 6 can, by no stretch of the imagination, be treated as a formal protest," said Dr. Roman in a statement. "Gregorio’s letter is a request for an inquiry, pure and simple, and nowhere is a formal protest discernible therein. We therefore reiterate that our Aug. 16 letter is the one and only protest submitted by UP. This being the case, we are entitled, as a matter of right, to our appeal."

Dr. Roman said she would’ve preferred not to ventilate her side on the controversy in media but since Montinola expressed his opinions in this column last Thursday, she decided to come out in the open, too.

"Arwind Santos is not the issue here," she said. "The Board’s decisions are."

UP vice chancellor for student affairs and former STAR sports columnist Tessa Jazmines said the state school has no intention to go to court if its protest is turned down by the Board even as Maroons team manager Rado Dimalibot earlier intimated the option isn’t far-fetched. That’s a relief. Going to court wouldn’t solve the problem that Dr. Roman is addressing.

Jazmines also said in filing the protest, UP wasn’t motivated by the prospect of reversing the outcome of the Maroons’ first round loss to FEU. UP was one of only two FEU victims in the first round. With the battle for the Final Four slots expected to go down to the wire, every game is critical. One win or one loss could spell the difference between entering the semifinals or not.

If Santos is ruled ineligible, FEU will forfeit every game he played in. The reversal will surely boost UP’s chances of advancing to the Final Four.

"That consideration is secondary," said Jazmines. "What we’re trying to point out in our protest is the lack of consistency in the UAAP Board’s decision-making. Rules can’t be changed year after year. Some kind of rational procedure is necessary. Decisions are made whimsically and that’s why they’re unpredictable. In Santos’ case, the rule is clear. Yet the Board is trying to find a way to justify his eligibility, making distinctions like when he graduated from high school and when he enrolled at FEU."

Jazmines said inconsistency has marked the decisions of previous Boards. The decision to sit out La Salle’s Noli Locsin, for instance, was inconsistent with the decision to allow University of the East’s James Yap to play despite similar circumstances. In the Mark Cardona case last year, Jazmines said the UAAP Board went to the extent of contacting a US school to try to prove his ineligibility and wildly interpreting fractions of a month to justify a prohibition.

Dr. Roman took the UAAP Board to task for the "ever-shifting process that finds new, and progressively weaker, arguments to support an inherently flawed decision whenever it is subjected to scrutiny and found wanting in legal basis."

Jazmines said because the UAAP Board is composed of school representatives who are closely involved in the operations of the league, it is vital to convene a Council of Elders–made up of the highest-ranking school heads–for a detached view of things. The Council of Elders could be the court of last resort to decide on issues such as Santos’. Surely, the decision of such a Council will be respected because of the Elders’ unsullied qualifications.

In parting, Dr. Roman said she filed the protest not to rock the UAAP boat on a flimsy issue but with the hope that "the matter will be resolved with due regard to the very purpose for which the UAAP was founded–to promote amateur sports among students of member universities and to develop the ideals of sportsmanship and fair play."