Full disclosure: Eric Altamirano is one of my favorite Philippine sports personalities ever. He was the architect of the mini-resurgence of the UP Fighting Maroons in the mid-‘90s, after recruiting RP Youth members Bryan Gahol, Paolo Mendoza, and Ogie Gumatay to the team. I was studying at a public science high school at the time, and the Maroons’ build-up, along with the Eraserheads’ university roots, made me really excited about the idea of attending the Unibersidad ng Pilipinas for college.

But Altamirano, who was also an assistant coach at Purefoods, had to abruptly leave UP when he was tapped by the pro team to replace the acerbic Chot Reyes. Altamirano promptly led the team to the 1997 All-Filipino Championship. That was still my favorite Purefoods championship team of all time, despite the fact that they were called (ugh) the Purefoods Corned Beef Cowboys. (At the onset of the name change in the previous season, management even made the coaches wear cowboy chalecos.)

It was a masterful coaching performance for the much-maligned Altamirano. At the time, he was rumored to be the lowest-paid coach in the league – before being acquired by the San Miguel Corporation, Purefoods had a reputation for being a spendthrift ballclub – and the tension between Altamirano and the team bubbled over during the next season. After a disappointing performance in the 1998 All-Filipino, he ended up leaving in the middle of the season to coach the Mobiline/Talk N Text franchise.

By then, most Purefoods fans couldn’t muster any resentment towards their former coach; he did a great job – he led the team to a championship and a runner-up finish in four conferences coaching the team – and the barat management didn’t take care of him. Meanwhile, basketball consciousness in UP had thrived so much that by the end of the decade, the Philippine Collegian featured Altamirano (and fellow Maroon Benjie Paras) among the university’s most important alumni in its Dekada ’90 issue, alongside other luminaries such as the Eraserheads, Jessica Zafra, Yano, Malou Mangahas, Manny Villar, and Nur Misuari. (The feature on Altamirano was full of errors, but still.)

In 2001, Altamirano returned to Purefoods, but Alvin Patrimonio’s star was fading, and they were going through a rebuilding phase. A couple of years later, Altamirano shocked the PBA world when he announced, just before the season started, that he was stepping down to dedicate his time to a new mission: developing young basketball talent.

(He also handed over the reins of the team to a youthful assistant by the name of Ryan Gregorio. UGH.)

Still, I can’t blame him for his choice, because Purefoods’ loss has been the youth program’s gain. Apart from short stints as team manager and interim coach for other SMC teams in the PBA, Altamirano really has devoted all his energies towards developing the country’s young basketball talent. In 2007, he was appointed by former SBP executive director Patrick Gregorio to head the country’s National Basketball Center (NBTC), and soon afterward, was appointed by the current executive director Noli Eala to handle the country’s youth team after Franz-gate.

In the recently-concluded Fiba-Asia U-16 Championship, Altamirano’s squad finished fourth, just behind perennial powerhouses China, Korea, and Iran. They narrowly missed a medal, dropping an overtime game against Iran in the battle for third. Altamirano’s squad, led by the spectacular Kiefer Ravena, was bannered by standouts coming mostly from Metro Manila high schools.

Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that this team might not even be the best we could have sent to the tournament. Let’s take a quick detour, and think about the roster of the Powerade Team Pilipinas National Team. In Yeng Guiao’s 15-man pool, there were 7 players who played high school basketball in the Philippines. Can you guess how many of those players played high school basketball in Metro Manila?

There was only one: Japeth Aguilar, who had a stint in Mapua, and even he grew up in Pampanga. The rest of the homegrown stalwarts of the national team played high school ball in their respective provinces: Kerby Raymundo (Bataan), James Yap (Iloilo), Cyrus Baguio (Iligan), Ranidel de Ocampo (Cavite), Willie Miller (Olongapo), and Arwind Santos (Pampanga).

So it’s very possible that there are a bunch of untapped prospects in the provinces that have not yet been discovered by the youth program. Fortunately, Altamirano is on it already. This December, a whopping 108 teams of 16-and-under players from all over the country will be competing in a D-League organized by the center. The NBTC people, led by Altamirano and Alex Compton, have been running camps since September to identify talent.

Perhaps even more remarkable is how the NBTC people are handling the logistics of such an undertaking. While the center and the youth program are being funded mainly by Nokia Philippines, Coach E and co. have shown an extraordinary ability to form partnerships with lots of important basketball stakeholders; team sponsors for the upcoming D-League range from corporate giants Smart and San Miguel-Purefoods (not exactly best of friends, by the way), to Liga Pilipinas patrons such as Victory Liner and Trace College, to local businesses in different locales like St. Elizabeth Hospital and Vericide Engineering from General Santos. We all talk about the ideal of basketball unity in this country, and here it is, happening before our very eyes, thanks to Coach E’s stewardship.

There are a million things wrong with Philippine sports, and I rail about a lot of them in this blog. I’m just so glad that there are people like Eric Altamirano, so that I get to write about things that are being done right.