No whitewash, witchhunt in cager’s probe — La Salle

La Salle yesterday said it’s digging deeper on the raging controversy involving the fielding of an ineligible player the past three years in the UAAP and vowed there would be no whitewash or a witch-hunt in the inquiry.

Lito Tanjuatco, the school’s representative to the UAAP board, said that La Salle would be submitting to the league’s highest body a report as soon as it concluded the investigation.

The UAAP board has given the Archers a free hand on the investigation after the latter admitted they had unknowingly fielded the ineligible player in three seasons. It will act on the case after La Salle has submitted the complete results.

"There will be no whitewash or witch-hunt. The sole objective of La Salle’s investigation is to find the truth regarding the issue and if the investigation shows that the player in question is academically ineligible then we will forfeit the games he played in under the UAAP rules and return what is not rightfully La Salle’s," said Tanjuatco.

That would mean forfeiting their championship last year and their runner-up finish in the 2005 season topped by the FEU Tamaraws.

Although the school has yet to formally identify the player, newspaper reports have singled out Mark Benitez, the team’s burly center who allegedly submitted falsified documents to gain entry into the school.

Tanjuatco added that the school would give the player in question the opportunity to air his side on the controversy and stressed that La Salle’s move "is not an attempt to shake things down in the UAAP".

Reacting to reports that the school could face possible suspension from the league as in the case of Adamson in 1994 when it fielded then amateur ace Marlou Aquino despite his academic deficiencies, Tanjuatco said the case of La Salle’s fielding an ineligible player was entirely different.

"Under UAAP rules, suspension is the penalty for a school that plays an ineligible player where there’s complicity of the school. In this case, there’s no complicity because it’s the school that has stepped forward in making its own investigation," he said.

The La Salle board actually met yesterday and said it would make an announcement today.