Philippine Asian News Today Vol 19 No 24 | Page 30

SPORTS
30
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY December 16 - 31, 2017
SPECTATOR
PBA opens on stormy weather
By Al Mendoza
JUST
barely
three
months after the Philippine
Basketball
Association
(PBA) got floored by internal
squabbles,
the
league
rose on December 17 to
reclaim its familiar role as
the country’s No. 1 sporting
entertainment.
Well, seemingly.
Look, the Sunday
opening of the PBA’s 43
season was bereft of even
the trappings of the league’s
usual pomp and gaiety.
It was absolutely
reeling from the hangover of
two major events that rocked
Asia’s first play-for-pay loop.
One, in October Chito
Narvasa was being forcibly
eased out by seven of the
12 PBA governors—surely
a
below-the-belt
move
unprecedented since the
league’s birth in 1975. It
was disrespect of the highest
order to the PBA’s key cog the
last two years.
Narvasa survived by the
skin of his teeth as eight votes
are needed to either retain or
remove a commissioner. But
the pain it had inflicted on the
man will forever leave an ugly
scar for the rest of his life.
A quick flashback: The
seven governors, led by MVP’s
three teams, namely TNT,
NLEx and Meralco, called
for the ouster of Narvasa
in protest over Narvasa’s
decision allowing Christian
Stanhardinger to be traded
to San Miguel Beer from
Kia on Draft Day. The four
other mutineers were Alaska,
Phoenix, Rain or Shine and
Blackwater.
Said Ricky Vargas, the
newly installed PBA chair, on
Sunday: “We reached out to
(Chito) Narvasa and made
amends for the things that
needed to be clarified. We
worked out on his personal
hurts… We begin the healing
process…”
Second, for the league’s
planning session getting
botched in Los Angeles in
October as an offshoot of
the Narvasa controversy,
created
a
monumental
mess, to say the least. For
it to be transformed into a
sightseeing tour smacked of
un-professionalism.
And then this: Where
was Ramoncito Fernandez on
Sunday? Isn’t he supposed
to succeed Mikee Romero as
PBA Chair? Suddenly, why
was Vargas the new chair?
No explanation on this at all.
Narvasa has resigned?
Did he say so?
And
why
were
sportswriters
present
during Sunday’s PBA press
conference not allowed to ask
questions? You call a press
conference barring journalists
from asking question a press
conference?
First time it happened.
Only in the Philippines?
Or only in the PBA?
There is more healing
needed. Now.
Remembering Taby
DESPITE
several
rules-t