Game fixing’s grip on PH basketball

THE travesty of a basketball game that was played in the Vismin Super Cup in Cebu last week has set off alarm bells over the resurgence of game fixing in the country’s most cherished sport. For some unfathomable reason, the players for the Siquijor Mystics and ARQ Builders Lapu-Lapu Heroes appeared to have developed a phobia for scoring baskets during the game, missing easy shots and committing almost comical errors.

One player shot his first free throw with his right hand and the second one with his left. Others bounced the ball off the backboard instead of aiming for the hoop.

The two teams only converted four of 29 tries from the free-throw line, a dismal performance for a professional basketball team.

There’s more. According to one report, Siquijor’s players were giving their opponents all the leeway to score. They would also wink in the direction of the Heroes’ bench after missing baskets.

Lapu-Lapu was leading, 27-13, at halftime, but the two teams never returned to the court for the second half. The officials called off the game, citing a power outage at the venue. Nobody doubted, however, that the real reason was that the officials wanted the charade to end.

The following day, the league announced it was banning the entire Mystics team and levying fines and suspensions on the Heroes’ side.

The incident triggered a tsunami of indignation among basketball officials, personalities and fans. The league’s Chief Operating Officer, Rocky Chan, described the players’ conduct as “a disgraceful act to the sport that we love the most.”

Collegiate stars now playing in the professional Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) lamented the lack of “respect and integrity” for the game.

Philippine Sports Commission Commissioner Ramon Fernandez, a legend in Philippine basketball, urged sports authorities to run a background check on the franchise owners in the Pilipinas Vismin Super Cup, a fledgling pro league made up of teams from the Visayas and Mindanao.

Games and Amusements Board (GAB) Chairman Abraham Mitra announced that the board was launching an investigation after he reviewed video clips of the game, which he described as “farcical.”

As a first step, the GAB has suspended the Mindanao leg of the tournament. “Our mandate is to ensure the integrity of professional sports and welfare of players and we’re doing just that,” the board said in a statement it issued last Sunday.

Generations of Filipinos have embraced basketball with a passion that defies comprehension. And its enduring popularity makes the sport an attractive playing field for gambling.

Except in horse racing, placing bets on the outcome of a sports activity is banned in the Philippines. Elsewhere in the world, sports betting is a colossal industry; by one estimate, reaching a market size of $203 billion in 2020.

It is naive to think that illegal sports gambling does not exist in the country. The GAB has investigated basketball-related, game-fixing cases in the past.

During the 1970s, several players in the semiprofessional MICAA league were questioned for fixing games or shaving points. Similar probes were later conducted involving PBA players.

Game fixing and point shaving appeared to have infected even collegiate basketball. Claims of rampant courtside betting in the National Collegiate Athletics Association and University Athletic Association of the Philippines were looked into, but no charges were ever filed.

A breakthrough of sorts in the campaign against illegal sports gambling may have been reached last week after the Department of Justice said it found probable cause to charge 17 individuals in a game-fixing and point-shaving scandal that scarred the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League.

The league’s founder himself, boxing icon and Sen. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, filed the complaint in 2019 against former team officials and players, many of them from the Soccsksargen Marlins.

In his complaint, Pacquiao alleged that players received from P20,000 to P50,000 for every game they manipulated.

Seventeen counts of game-fixing have been dropped, but the Justice department said the evidence in the remaining five counts was strong enough to stand up in court.

The GAB must be equally relentless in exposing the people involved in the Vismin Super Cup gambling scandal and in bringing them to justice.