Jinggoy in as chair of cage body

After a near falling out, the key players within the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas, including those from the Basketball Association of the Philippines and Pilipinas Basketball, have reached a compromise.

According to an SBP insider, it was recently agreed upon that Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, the BAP president, would assume the position of SBP chairman while industrialist Manny V. Pangilinan, will be the president.

The source said as chairman, Estrada will be the one to represent the SBP in the different functions here and abroad while as president, Pangilinan will make most of the calls.

The agreement will be formalized and put in black and white when the SBP holds its first national congress on Nov. 11. The rest of the officers should also be known during the congress.

The SBP has a 25-man board of trustees, 12 each from the BAP and PB, and the final slot occupied by Pangilinan, chairman of telecommunication giants PLDT and Smart.

The source said Estrada and Pangilinan couldn’t have agreed at a better time since some members of SBP board of trustees were already getting impatient, and have started to entertain ideas of calling everything off.

"These members have started thinking of abandoning the SBP. If this had happened, we’d all go back to square one and start from scratch. And this will not look good before the FIBA," he said.

For various reasons, the SBP has twice called off the holding of the national congres, first on Sept. 30 and the second on Oct. 21.

During this period, some major issues emerged, particularly the resignation of then BAP president Joey Lina who was part of the three-man panel that created the SBP, the others being Pangilinan and PB head Bernie Atienza.

Estrada took over the post vacated by Lina. Immediately after, Estrada was pushed by hardcore BAP members to seek the SBP presidency, and nothing less. This led to another impasse.

The source said Estrada and Pangilinan, who spearheaded the creation of the SBP, sealed the compromise before the latter left for Hong Kong for a pressing business commitment.

The SBP was created last September to eventually take the place of the BAP and PB as the rightful basketball association in the country, at the same time forge lasting peace and unity in the sport.

With SBP at the helm, the International Basketball Federation or FIBA might soon lift the suspension it slapped on the Philippines at the height of the basketball crisis last year.