The Height of Hypocrisy and Inconsistency

Tuesday, 30 June, 2009
The Height of Hypocrisy and Inconsistency
By An Enlightened Sports Fan
Federacion Member

The deception continues. It will go on so long as some segments of our society remain beneficiaries of a tycoon-businessman Manuel Pangilinan’s largesse.

Admittedly, Pangilinan has money – maybe his own or maybe his foreign boss’ – to burn. He has the capacity to buy even some people’s honor. But what is material gain if one’s honor is trampled upon? There are those who would readily do so, perhaps even make a pact with the devil.

Yet, there are the few people who cannot be bought in anyway. That’s simply because these brave souls value their honor and integrity. The principles they have built through the years are not – and will never be – for sale.

The pseudo leaders of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), led by Pangilinan, tickle local basketball fans supposedly with their programs built around this tycoon-businessman’s money.

But why is the SBP under fire from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) right now, two years (February 2007) since a Unity Congress produced an agreement – named the Bangkok Agreement for it was signed in the Thailand city – that included the merger of the tradition-steeped Basketball Association of the Philippines and the fledgling Pilipinas Basketball?
The new organization, under the Bangkok Agreement, was to be known as the BAP-SBP.
Fast track to year 2009. That national basketball federation is now simply called the SBP. The Board is made up of member-stakeholders that are beholden to the honorable Pangilinan for millions of reasons. In contrast, nearly all of the 87 member-stakeholders that were validated by the FIBA and FIBA-Asia under the Bangkok Agreement have been disenfranchised conveniently to suit the SBP’s self interests.

Looking for violations of the Bangkok Agreement? That the federation is now simply called SBP is one.

Proof of this is the correspondence sent by the SBP for the holding of a National Congress recently dated on June 10, 2009 (the event was eventually cancelled due to a lack of quorum.) The correspondence carried a SBP letterhead. Should it not have carried the BAP-SBP letterhead?

And all along the SBP spin doctors say it’s the BAP that is sowing disunity in the local basketball organization. Is unity not for everybody? Is it simply unity for the SBP?

Of course, there is the questionable SBP election on June 12, 2008.

While the BAP held its own election on June 4, 2008, it carried the mandate of nearly 70 of the members-stakeholders that were validated under the Bangkok Agreement. They formed an overwhelming majority.

In contrast, the SBP came up with a list of 19 member-stakeholders that were all beholden to its organization. Of the 19 members accredited by SBP, five (5) of them were not listed in the original membership list approved by FIBA, two (2) did not attend the meeting, and three (3) withdrew their support to the SBP faction for a simple reason – "no quorum."

It also disenfranchised all the FIBA-approved members-stakeholders that they knew would probably take the BAP’s side. While it did not have a quorum, it proudly announced a 25-man Board. Even a grade-schooler knows the arithmetic does not add up.

Listening to the June 24, 2009 press conference called by the SBP president, Pangilinan, and its executive director, Noli Eala, it sure made the more discerning sports fans laugh.

Money’s flowing as it came just one day after the SBP faction came out with a full-page ad in the country’s leading broadsheets – including one owned by the honorable Pangilinan – to denounce the FIBA and the BAP.

During the presscon, the honorable SBP officials took potshots at the FIBA because things now seemingly are not going their way. How conveniently it was forgotten that these same people once sang praises to the top officials of the same international basketball federation when it was on good terms with them.

Where’s the consistency? When favorable decisions go your way, it’s credible (and right) and when decisions are not in your favor, it’s not credible (and incorrect)?
Two years ago, the SBP faction said that any conflict in a National Sports Association should not be left to the courts to decide. This came about after the BAP took its case to court and won a favorable decision from a Manila Regional Trial Court.
This principle would have been very noble. But coming as it from the group of the honorable Pangilinan, whose professional basketball team and one college team he supports sued the pro league and the collegiate league a few years ago, it becomes hypocritical.

Even now, or just after it was called by the FIBA to explain its violations of the Bangkok Agreement in a May 23, 2009 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, the SBP is still looking to the Supreme Court to fight for its legitimacy.

Regarding FIBA’s intervention on local matters – what do they know about Philippine Basketball, proudly declared the SBP executive director, Eala, during the June 24, 2009 presscon – the SBP now suddenly does not want to subject itself to the jurisdiction of the FIBA (which created a Special Commission last May to look into the RP basketball leadership problem).
Yet way back in the days when the FIBA was in its good graces, if not under its spell, it was all right to ask the FIBA to dismiss the BAP.

Again, where’s the consistency?

On a personal matter, the honorable Eala verbally abused the BAP secretary-general during the presscon by calling the former an alien who’s only good for deportation.

Purely, it was his intention to destroy the BAP official’s credibility. But look who is doing the talking.

Is not Eala the same guy who was disbarred by the Supreme Court for stealing another man’s wife? And is not Eala the same guy that refuses to pay the professional fees of the television broadcasters of Liga Pilipinas in the last conference? To think that Liga Pilipinas was among the SBP list of member-stakeholders at a time when it did not even stage its first tournament. The SBP even violated its own rule of a two-year commitment for membership requirement to accommodate the criminally convicted Eala?

Eala certainly is the last to talk about credibility and integrity.

Walang personalan, trabaho lang, (Nothing personal, just doing our job), Mr. Executive Director/Commissioner Noli Eala.

Let’s limit the discussions around the Bangkok Agreement. This is where all the violations of the Bangkok Agreement will be up for investigation during the Special Commission meeting.

Let justice be served. The truth shall set us all free.