SBP Executive Director Noli Eala chimed in on the raging Wynne Arboleda issue, and his comments, which he made over a series of Twitter posts, were interesting to say the least:

#1 Smart Gilas is playing in the pba to get good tough games. No prob losing to BK. Part of learning. But its how we lost that sucks!

#2 I have never seen a game with 4 flagrant fouls on 1 team in 1 half. Then an attack on a fan. You think this happened by chance?

#3 Players esp a rookie like matias will not commit flagrant fouls lest he knows di sya papagalitan. And our players were starting to get hurt

#4 Physical games are diff from rough games and rough games different from dirty games. BK was downright dirty and wicked vs gilas.

#5 PBA players have no right to attack a fan, no matter the provocation. And this is the 3rd time in less than a year sa PBA? What's going on?

Eala’s sentiments are valid, of course, but is anyone else surprised just by how cavalier his tweets are? They're obviously meant against Burger King coach Yeng Guiao, with whom he’s had issues, while barely hiding his bitterness against the PBA, the league he served as commissioner until he was forced to resign after his disbarment.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of it, as it gives me more material for the blog.)

It’s odd though because you would expect more tact from a top official of the country's national basketball federation, someone who used to be a lawyer at that. It either betrays a lack of awareness over just how public his Twitter account is (shades of RG Cruz?) or he just doesn’t care at all--the kind of thing that has gotten him in trouble before. Consider how much more diplomatic and articulate Smart Gilas player Chris Tiu was when he talked about the same topic. Then again, that’s why Chris is so OMG awesome!

Speaking of law graduates, Toff Rada flexes his brain’s legal muscles and talks about the implications of Wynne Arboleda’s actions and his subsequent apology if the legal system were applied in the case:

A fan (Katigbak) was assaulted, through means of a kick and several punches, by a PBA player (Arboleda). Based on what I saw from the pictures, and the injuries that Katigbak sustained, that would have been classified as a violation of Article 266 (Slight physical injuries) under the Revised Penal Code (which is an option that Katigbak can actually pursue, should he choose to). That crime carries a penalty of arresto menor, which has a prison term of 1 day to ten days as minimum, and up to 21 days to 30 days in the maximum.

However, as the PBA is not a court of law, the penalties that they can levy would be limited insofar as Arboleda is concerned. Applying the analogy, if we convert the prison term to playing dates, the PBA can actually suspend Arboleda anywhere from one game up to thirty games (which in PBA-time could mean the rest of the conference up to the next).

Read the whole thing at Toff’s blog to see his verdict.