Fiasco in Mangaldan SK hoopfest

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

THE experience of the organizers of the Mangaldan SK Inter-Barangay Basketball Tournament provides crucial lessons to other barangays holding similar tournaments in the province.

It was during the middle of the elimination round when rumors spread that there were some age and residency cheatings plus politicking that began to mar the Mangaldan SK Inter-Barangay Basketball Tournament. True or untrue, I said to myself that the reports could be sour-graping on the part of the team coaches whose teams lost. Anyway, I decided to just shrug it off because I didn’t want to spoil the fledgling league which was just revived after four years of absence until my son Jazy, coach of the Buenlag team, filed a protest against the Poblacion team for recruiting an illegal player named Randy Cabrera Tibunsay whose name does not exist in the Mangaldan Municipal Registrar office. Jazy substantiated his allegation with the certification from NSO Calasiao that no such person exists in Mangaldan. Unconvinced, I did my own inquiry and asked the help of the LTO Dagupan and Mangaldan COMELEC. My findings were the same that the player Tibunsay submitted a fictitious and spurious document that the organizers, deliberately or not, failed to scrutinize. The player should have been disqualified from the very beginning.

This omission is the fault of the organizers, namely: Danny Villanueva, Cris Casupang and my daughter Raisa, chair of the technical committee chair, the Mangaldan SK Federation president Charlene Joy Flores, as the commissioner of the league. Command responsibility ‘ika nga sa madaling salita. The brouhaha persisted when the Amansabina team headed by its chairman Harris Soriano found out that one player from Bari team named Edouard Bautista Pasaoa submitted a tampered photocopy of his live birth certificate. The copy showed his birthday on November 4, 1986 when in fact he was born on November 4, 1985, exceeding the age limit of 25 years of age to qualify to play. I confirmed this not only from the Mangaldan Municipal Registrar office last April 3 but from Pasaoa himself when he unexpectedly visited my home with his friend and my youngest son Elcid. He admitted his true birth date. Amansabina filed a protest, but it came too late. The 24 hour-limit as the FIBA rule says, has lapsed and so the protest turned moot and academic, to the delight of the Bari team.

Consequently, the tournament was suspended after the quarterfinals (March 27) for26 days due to the running protests. The organizers held their final meeting last week to solve the impasse and it was a 2-1 split verdict with Villanueva and Casupang siding with Poblacion and Bari teams saying the two teams should not be expelled for disobeying the FIBA rules and merely decided on ousting only the two cheating players. Raisa was outnuimbered. “FIBA rules na sila ng FIBA rules na nuon pa nila sinasabi yan lalo na nuong briefing eh hindi naman pala nila susundin,” fumed Raisa.

Jazy, meanwhile, has not received any official reply from the organizers. The three are accusing each other for the impasse.  Evidently, the three deliberately did not reply nor act on Jazy’s protest because they knew they cannot find any justifiable and credible reason to disqualify the team that they are emotionally attached to. Curiously, the organizers immediately responded to Soriano’s protest knowing that Amansabina team protested belatedly, an easy one to justify.

The situation turned to worse when the Alitaya team that bagged the fourth and last slot for the semis and supposed to play Poblacion, begged off from the tournament in sympathy with the Amansabina team. They arrived at the venue last Sunday in civies simply to watch the Bari-Guilig battle and not to play at all, a sign of protest against the unfair practices of the organizers. Raisa did not show up, too, aghast at the obvious favoritism played by Casupang and Villanueva. The true colors of the two were evident and Mangaldan basketball fans (including this writer) no longer trust them.

And believe it or not, the state of affairs has become sordid with the championships ready to start. Compounding the situation, my reliable source reported that NARECOM Region 1 commissioner Jun Amado has quit his post to rejoin the BARECOM group of referees, abandoning the Mangaldan league. This development stunned the league officials and the fans. I fear that the tournament will no longer play next year because of the organizer’s failure to adhere to their agreed rules. The only way for it to resume is to look for a more competent and impartial group to organize it.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: And God said But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. EXODUS 20:10-11

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