Questions begging for answers
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.
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.