There’s something curious about Chito Salud’s appointment as deputy commissioner of the PBA by the league’s Board of Governors last week. This year’s chairman, Lito Alvarez – aka the mama san of Air 21’s virtual brothel of up-and-coming PBA players who will end up for sale sooner or later – described the decision as unanimous when it was announced about a week ago.

The very next day though, a couple of governors spoke to GMANews.TV about the move, and it turns out, both of them had reservations about Salud’s appointment, as well as another matter that the board discussed in the same meeting: the granting of Purefoods, San Miguel Corporation’s third franchise in the PBA, voting rights on non-basketball matters.

As one anonymous governor noted, the appointment of Salud gives him the inside track to become as the next commissioner of the league, and as such, there should have been more careful scrutiny about the move.

Salud was one of two final candidates to replace Noli Eala a couple of years ago; there was, however, a deadlock among governors between Salud and Lambert Ramos, a telecommunications executive. Unable to break the tie, the board decided to offer the post instead to Barrios, who had been acting as the league’s officer-in-charge. At the time, Salud was serving as Barrios’ consultant on legal affairs as well.

I still wonder, as I did back then, exactly what made Salud qualified for the position of PBA commissioner; precious little is known about his background, other than the fact that he’s a lawyer and his father Rudy is a former PBA commissioner who is close to former Marcos crony and San Miguel Corporation chairman Danding Cojuangco – the elder Salud was campaign manager for Cojuangco’s 1992 presidential run.

We do know that in the last elections, Salud the younger served as spokesman for erstwhile Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado’s failed bid for the town’s mayoralty race. Salud was originally supposed to be Mercado’s running mate, but the former backed out in favor of another candidate, Romulo Pena, who ended up winning.

(Later, Salud was involved in a political organization that his father put up called Volunteer Movement for Good Governance, which campaigned for Manny Villar, Bong Revilla, and Mercado. Oddly enough, the group counted among its members Aniano Desierto, whose tenure as Ombudsman was marred by charges of incompetence, inefficiency, and corruption – the exact opposite of good governance.)

I have no quarrel with Atty. Salud – for all I know, he just might be the kind of brilliant man that the PBA needs going forward. But everything we know about him so far, as a lawyer and as a spokesman for a losing small-time politician, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

As far as we know, the best thing going for Salud right now is his surname. Then again, we did just elect Noynoy Aquino as president, didn’t we?