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My column on this issue merited a call from Dean Baldomero Estenzo of the University of Cebu College of Law, one of the long standing pillars of Cebu basketball.
Dean Estenzo informed me that legally, the Villafuerte-Pichay wing of the BAP-SBP may have a leg to stand on.
In the Bangkok agreement, Congressman Luis Villafuerte was chosen as interim Chairman, while Manny Pangilinan was interim President.
The version of the Villafuerte-Pichay group is that after Bangkok, the status of Villafuerte’s chairmanship has been disregarded.
I completely agree with CESAFI’s stance that it is entitled to some explanation why these things developed from the time that BAP-SBP was given FIBA recognition and accreditation from the Philippine Olympic Committee.
Being a major stakeholder not only in BAP-SBP, but in the entire basketball firmament of the Philippines, when CESAFI asks a question, it should be fully explained by the people at the helm of SBP(I seem to recall that the Pangilinan wing has dropped the name BAP)
From what I have read from the news releases, it seems that when CESAFI broached the all important question why the issue of representation continues, either the explanation was not well made, or the question was not given enough importance.
CESAFI therefore has every reason to be slighted, as what usually happens when imperial Manila rears its ugly head at the promdi’s and the ‘cianos.
This intentional slight was immediately taken advantage of by the Villafuerte-Pichay wing by holding their convention here, sponsoring basketball tournaments that could not be held in Manila and giving CESAFI Commissioner Felix Tiukinhuy the tournament directorship of the AUBC.
While CESAFI got snubbed by the Pangilinan-wing, the Villafuerte-Pichay group, politicians as they are, showered it with all the love and kisses that they could afford to give.
For a reason.
If CESAFI decides to side with the Villafuerte-Pichay faction, suddenly its claim of legitimacy would be given a much needed blood-transfusion. CESAFI would be the only league of note that they could cite as member, and would certainly serve as magnet for other leagues in the Visayas and Mindanao and other similar leagues in the provinces which also probably got snubbed by Pangilinan and company.
Without a league with the stature of CESAFI, the BAP-SBP of Villafuerte and Pichay would be non-compos mentis.
I was informed by a reliable source that when the old BAP presented its list of affiliated associations, it included the CAAA and the CBL, whose epitaphs could be found in one of the memorial gardens around.
With CESAFI getting behind Villafuerte and Pichay, the old BAP is going to rise like a zombie to hound Philippine basketball once more.
My hope is that CESAFI would make the correct decision. Not on the basis of any legal document. Not on the basis of whatever hurt egos that may have been caused by the high-handed manner that CESAFI and its representative have been treated.
If I were in the CESAFI Board I would only have two questions that I would ask to be considered so that it would arrive at the correct decision: 1. Is it is for Philippine basketball? 2. Is it good for CESAFI?
If the decision that would be arrived at would satisfactorily answer these two important questions, then I am sure CESAFI would have made the correct decision, no matter what it is.
