Rey Joble of GMA News today confirms that PBA commissioner Chito Salud has shot down the proposed trade for Air 21’s marquee rookies Nonoy Baclao, Rabeh Al-Hussaini, and Rey Guevarra in exchange for San Miguel’s Joseph Yeo, Danny Seigle, Mick Pennisi, a first round pick from the Beermen, a case of San Mig Light, and 3 years’ supply of Skelan for the senior citizens in the deal. Salud called the deal lopsided, and virtually confirmed reports that there has been a trade despite vehement denials of Air 21 officials.

But that may not be the end of it, because Waylon Galvez of the Manila Bulletin is reporting this morning that Air 21 is entertaining talks of selling its franchise to the San Miguel Corporation. Of course, it’s no guarantee a sale will happen, especially since the sourcing of the Bulletin story was very, very flimsy – it was a single anonymous source speculating about the ongoing discussion, with no confirmation from other sources.

Still, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Air 21 is willing to sell out; in fact, they had a deal in place for Mikee Romero to acquire the team (as part of a bigger deal for the Harbour Centre owner to buy into Burger King) but the transaction fell through.

I have mixed feelings if such a deal ends up happening. It means that the PBA will finally be rid of the terrible Bert Lina franchise, which has cause untold damage to the league over the years by selling its star players and acting as conduits to sham trades between the league’s sister teams. The biggest threat to the league today is a lack of credibility, which in turn causes the disenchantment of lifelong fans, and you could draw a direct line to that to the Bert Lina, Lito Alvarez, and that franchise. For the PBA, getting rid of Air 21 is like curing it of herpes.

But I’m not too keen about the idea of yet another San Miguel Corporation team joining the PBA fold. As it is, people already think of it as an SMC League. SMC having four teams in the league would consolidate even more power into its bloc, even more so than when the corporation had the Coca-Cola Tigers as the fourth team in its roster.

Back then, even though SMC owned four teams, they were only allowed two votes in the PBA board of governors. This came about late in 2001, when SMC acquired the Purefoods Corporation from the Ayalas, which created a crisis in the league as to whether the conglomerate would be allowed to keep their franchise. The board reached a compromise, wherein SMC would be allowed to keep Purefoods (and later, Coca-Cola), but the team would have no voting rights in PBA board meetings.

It was a fair enough deal that kept San Miguel from having too much power over the policy direction of the league. No matter how many teams SMC or any other conglomerate in the PBA owned, they would only be limited to two votes in the board.

Of course, that isn’t the case anymore since late last year, when the board railroaded a resolution to restore voting rights for policy-related matters back to Purefoods, giving the SMC bloc three votes in the board. If the conglomerate acquires the Air 21 franchise, they would gain a fourth vote. It’s an event that would put the balance of the league in serious jeopardy.

Funnily enough, the PBA board chairman who facilitated the restoration of voting rights to Purefoods? Air 21’s former team manager, Lito Alvarez.