Cagebelles push for Chinese naturalization

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine women’s basketball team is hopeful that legislative efforts seeking to grant Philippine citizenship to Chinese center Zheng Xiaojing, will move forward and be finalized soon as the cagebelles gear up for the Asian Championship and the Southeast Asian Games next year.

“Ang magandang balita is nakapasa na sa House yung bill, yung papales nasa Senado na and ang pangako sa amin is early part of 2013 mapipirmahan na ni President Noynoy Aquino (The good news is that the bill has been approved in the House level and it’s already in the Senate. We were told that it will be finalized and signed into law by President Aquino by early 2013),” said coach Haydee Ong.

House Bill 2683, which was approved by the Lower House on third reading last August, has been sent to the Senate for concurrence. It was already read on first reading and referred to the Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

“Nasa Fujian si Zheng ngayon pero pag natapos na ang papeles next year, babalik siya at tuloy-tuloy na ang ensayo niya, (Zheng is currently in Fujian and when everything’s finalized next year, she will return to stay and train with us,” said Ong.

Xiaojing, a 6-foot-3 frontliner from Fujian, has been training with the Pinay cagebelles for the last two years while hoping to be able to represent the country in international competitions.

It was only this year when her bid for citizenship actually gained significant development in Congress.

The cagebelles, who go by the moniker Perlas Pilipinas, have set their sights on the 25th Fiba Asia Championship for Women in Bangkok, Thailand in Oct. 2013 and the SEA Games in Naypyidaw, Myanmar two months later.

According to Ong, the Pinay players are especially eager to see action in the SEAG, looking to make up for their bungled campaign in the last edition. In the 2011 SEAG in Jakarta, they were within striking distance of a gold medal but a mental lapse allowed the Thais to force overtime and eventually snatch the mint.

“Alam nating lahat ang nangyari sa Indonesia, nag-silver tayo; sayang ang pagkatalo natin against Thailand. Ito ang talagang motivation ng team for this coming SEA Games, yung makabawi (We knew what happened in Indonesia, we settled for the silver after that painful loss to Thailand. So our motivation for the coming SEA Games is to bounce back strong),” said Ong.

The team, said Ong, is on a “rebuilding” phase, with only half of the veterans of the Indonesia SEAG in the pool. Leading the Perlas cast are Ewon Arayi, Chovi Borja, Melissa Jacob, Analyn Almazan and Joan Grajales.