Social capital and basketball situation

Today’s column was to have been a follow up to last week’s piece about values formation in children’s sports. I mentioned that sports clinics organizers would perform a noteworthy act of social responsibility if they imparted more than just technical skills. I would have written about undue pressure on youth in the name of "starting them young" but things changed during the week.

I expected the meeting between Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), led by its president, former congressman Jose Cojuangco Jr., and Federation Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) secretary general Patrick Baumann on April 3 in Seoul, Korea to settle the basketball squabble with finality. It seems however we have to go through another episode before we put a closure to the controversy.

The POC says it was in Seoul primarily to attend the 15th general assembly meeting of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC). The assembly gave POC the opportunity to get the FIBA’s views on the lifting of the suspension of Philippine participation in FIBA and International Olympic Committee (IOC)-sanctioned international tournaments.

The basketball controversy is being monitored closely by a great number of people including those who have no extraordinary interest in sports and just cursorily read sports pages. The most interesting question they ask is about what could be called a still unexplainable phenomenon: non-stop controversies in Philippine sports, especially basketball.

In September 2001, the FIBA also intervened with not much success, as Baumann now admits, in a letter to the POC dated Aug. 30, 2005. 

This new episode in Philippine basketball is the time needed to achieve Baumann’s wish for the POC to get BAP president Jose Lina Jr. to sign the constitution and by-laws of the newly formed Pilipinas Basketball.

The FIBA suggested in a letter to Cojuangco dated Oct. 27, 2005 that "Should the POC wish to revisit its position on BAP, the MOU process is unnecessary and our ban can be lifted immediately. In such event, for the benefit of a long-term solution for basketball, we are at your disposal to "assist the POC and BAP "to rapidly implement necessary changes in the BAP constitution and organization, along the lines recommended in the MOU."

FIBA pointed out that, for the MOU process to be successful "will require all basketball stakeholders to rapidly buy into the concept and to ensure smooth transition and completion." It would be tedious process, thus the suggestion by FIBA itself to revisit the process and get Lina to sign the constitution and by-laws of the newly formed Pilipinas Basketball. The Lina signature will trigger a process that ultimately ends in the lifting of the suspension and a normalized situation.

People in the know say that a big bonus the POC got in the meeting with FIBA was a better appreciation by FIBA of the "bottom up" development of Philippine basketball that starts from the grassroots and the personalities behind such development. Baumann’s suggestion (expressed three times) to Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner Noli Eala to "stay the course" reveals the desired direction to be taken in solving the Philippine problem.

What is happening to Philippine basketball is a mirror image of Philippine society, that is, the lack of social capital. Cohen and Prusak (2001:4) define lack of social capital as the absence of trust, mutual understanding and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible.

The squabble is also part of a bigger power play that Baumann himself pointed out in the Aug. 30 letter: "It is quite obvious that the basketball family in the Philippines is divided in several groups or stakeholders, all bearing unfortunately, different interests and (ab) using of the popularity of our sport in your country." FIBA’s opinion is "it is inappropriate to use basketball as a sport-political game between opposing sides. As a consequence, FIBA cannot accept the POC’s decisions to remove one group in favor of another one." 

That last sentence also indicates that FIBA wants the Philippine predicament solved by Filipinos themselves, it being a domestic problem. Such a position reaffirms the Olympic ideal and culture of not interfering in a country’s internal problems. FIBA and IOC do not want to rock the boat further and thus are also not (unsurprisingly) immune from politics.

One looming problem is, even if Lina agrees to sign the Pilipinas Basketball constitution and by-laws (or if the situation were to be reversed and the other stakeholders agree to amending the present BAP constitution and by-laws), would the other BAP officials buy into the new order of things? A re-organization will alter the power structure in basketball. I’m not sure if certain parties are ready for that. And this is precisely the reason for the impasse: people have interests that conflict with each other.

The basketball problem could be placed in proper perspective as we observe Lent and recall the passion of our Lord who came to serve and not be served. As we reflect, we realize the need for humility, not in the sense of being soft-spoken and reserved (although these two qualities are by themselves praiseworthy), but in the sense of putting the interest of the larger community ahead of one’s own.

Lost in all these too are the strong fraternal bonds that were built in past trying times especially in the case of Cojuangco and Lina who risked practically life, limb and property in EDSA 1 and 2. Both may have been sucked into the fray by hawks in their respective camps.