"What’s hurting the PBA is not the Fil-Ams, but the perception of fake Fil-Ams," clarifies broadcaster Jude Turcuato, the league’s incoming head of marketing.
The handful of players investigated by both chambers of Congress - and subsequently the NBI - are the primary concern.
To refresh your memory, a player must have one Filipino parent to be eligible to play professionally. If both parents are naturalized as citizens of a foreign country before the player is born, he is irreversibly ineligible. - But aside from the perception of misrepresentation, there is another intangible. People no longer feel as sure that they could become PBA players. The league lost some of its aspirational value.
"Before, we each had our specialty, our niche," explains Francis Arnaiz, voted one of the league’s 25 greatest players. "They could identify with us. They said ‘Hey, I can do that.’ And they felt drawn to us. I don’t really see if it’s the same now."
Also, you can’t blame fans who have trouble discerning between imports and some Fil-Ams. There are striking similarities in looks, size and playing style.
Lastly, there’s the impression that some teams simply overdid their recruitment of Fil-foreigners.
"When you look at it, some of these Fil-Ams are taking up slots that homegrown players can do, anyway," clarifies San Miguel Beer’s Olsen Racela, whose assist numbers are at a career-high despite the influx of power-playing hybrids playing against him. "There are some who are really unique, mostly the big ones. But the rest aren’t really any different from us.
If the teams involved ultimately agree, the PBA will likely impose a limit on the number of Fil-Ams per team, as in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association, whose medium-term plan called for the eventual phasing out of Fil-Ams. Stricter regulations on required paperwork will also go a long way in cutting out shams. The irony of it all is that Alex Compton of the PBL’s eliminated Sunkist-UST Tigers, an American born in the Philippines, has been asking the PBA to let him in. The board has deferred any decision, and Compton’s contract expires in June.
Will there be any real solution to this problem? Would the teams affected agree to losing their star Fil-Ams? And would the other teams compensate them with additional draft picks, for example? What is significant is that the PBA is making a move to resolve this problem in a universally acceptable fashion. The courtship with disillusioned fans continues.