Shameful and disgusting

My good friend Simon Lee of Paniqui, Tarlac, yesterday shared a disturbing item he picked up from the July 31 issue of the Chinese Commercial News.

It was about a formal complaint lodged by Asia World against the Philippine basketball team that stayed in the Taipei hotel during the recent Jones Cup.

Simon, who spends half the year here and the other half in Vancouver supervising a paper trading business, took the trouble of translating into English the story in the Chinese newspaper.

Here is Simon’s unedited translation, word for word:

"Like the previous Philippine basketball teams participated in the Jones Cup tournament, which left much topics to talk about, this year’s Philippine team is no exception.

"A Philippine team player the other day at the Asia World Hotel where the team is billeted harassed a stewardess of China Airlines who also stayed at the same hotel through telephone calls. The indignant stewardess complained to the hotel management of Asia World Hotel which sent a formal written complaint to Taiwan Basketball Association’s international section expressing wish that the Philippine players not to disturb other guests of the hotel. The manager of the Philippine team had apologized and gave assurance that the team would discipline its players.

"According to reports, a member of the Philippine team while having meal at the coffee shop of the hotel the other day kept throwing flirty glances to the stewardess at the next table who ignored the unwelcome overture. Through some channels, the Filipino player was able to obtain the room number of the stewardess. Subsequently, the player kept on harassing the stewardess through phone calls to her room. Upon checking out of the hotel yesterday, the girl complained to the hotel management.

"Asia World yesterday sent a formal written complaint to the Taiwan Basketball Association’s international section requesting the association to ask the Philippine team to discipline its players in order not to disturb other guests of the hotel. The association’s assistant secretary general Wang Ren Shan promptly provided the Philippine team with a copy of the complaint. The manager of the Philippine team had repeatedly apologized and warned their players of any repetition of such act."

Based on the report, it looks like the Philippine team failed miserably in its mission of goodwill in Taipei. The Filipino cagers didn’t only embarrass themselves on the court but also off the court. Their participation as players and ambassadors of goodwill wasn’t only disappointing. It was shameful and disgusting.

The team was coached by Dong Vergeire who has been handpicked by misguided Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP) demi-gods to lead the way for the Philippines to regain cage prominence in Asia. This was the same Vergeire who recently coached the team to a winless record in South Korea and returned home marveling at the way Korean college players massacred the Filipinos. He spoke about the revolutionary way that Koreans play the game.

Either Vergeire is out of touch or he’s just as inutile as those who are advising sports patron Jean Henri Lhuillier to invest millions in a losing proposition. As the kids in the hip-hop generation would say, hello!

If it hasn’t dawned on Lhuillier yet, his expensive experiment to form a national team without support from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is doomed to failure. Is Lhuillier being taken for a ride?

Last year, he bankrolled the national team that played at the Asian Basketball Confederation championships in China. The Filipinos crawled back home with heads bowed. They finished 15th of 16 teams and along the way, lost to Qatar, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Syria–countries that used to be easy pickings for the national team.

At the recent Jones Cup, Vergeire reinforced the so-called national team with two PBA players Marc Pingris and Omanzie Rodriguez as if they could make a difference. Celino Cruz, Ricky Calimag, Dennis Madrid and Richie Melencio–none of whom is talented enough to play in the PBA–were back as the nucleus of the "team of the future."

Vergeire said before the tournament, his goal was to improve on the Philippines’ fifth place finish in the previous Jones Cup. What a lowly objective considering the Philippines has won the Jones Cup thrice, the last in 1998 with Tim Cone at the helm of the Centennial team made up of PBA stars.

Worse, Vergeire couldn’t even achieve his unambitious target. The Philippines wound up seventh of eight in a finish that was reportedly ridiculed by Filipino overseas workers in Taipei. The only team that the Filipinos beat was a clumsy and raw youth team from the German basketball academy.

The Philippines lost seven games by an average of 21.4 points. Vergeire’s charges bowed to a Canadian college team by 15, to an unpolished under-24 Japanese squad by 16, to a raggedy Korean military quintet with no national player by 18, to Perth of Australia by 40, to Taiwan’s A team by 31, to Taiwan’s B team by 20 and to Qatar by 10.

The word from Vergeire’s camp was it was a learning experience. As usual, the lame excuse was the players were just out to absorb what they could from tough opposition. You wonder if national pride was ever in the equation. You wonder when the learning will stop. You wonder if the BAP honchos realize they’re insulting the intelligence of Filipino hoop fans. You wonder if Vergeire’s bosses understand the difference between theory and reality.

Simon, in exasperation, wrote this note to express his sentiments.

"The so-called Philippine team landed second to last place in the Jones Cup. The only team they defeated was Germany which sent a young team composed of students of a basketball academy. Some Taiwanese friends said in jest that maybe next year, it will be better for the Philippines to form a team from the Filipino OCW in Taiwan to represent the country instead of sending third-rate players to embarrass the country, a traditional Asian basketball power with a glorious past."

For Simon and countless of other Filipino basketball fans, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the national team unless the PBA comes to the rescue.