Editor’s note: PBA Rewind is a regular feature written by Jay P. Mercado that looks back on a piece of Philippine Basketball Association history.

The Talk N Text Tropang Texters are on a roll! After losing their opening game in the Commissioner’s Cup to the Smart Gilas national team 103-98, the Texters have gone on a tear, winning their next 10 games in near-dominant fashion. After ending the eliminations with an eight game winning streak, Talk N Text bulldozed the Air 21 Express in the first two games of their best-of-five semifinals series, leaving the Philippine Cup champions one win away from their second straight finals appearance.

We seldom get to see such dominance by one team in the PBA today. For one, starting with the tenure of the late commissioner Rudy Salud, the league has emphasized parity, trying to make sure that each team is competitive. These days, the corporate rivalry involving two of the country’s biggest business titans, Manny Pangilinan and Ramon Ang, has ensured their teams aren’t too far behind each other when it comes to PBA basketball.

But the Tropang Texters’ feat today still pales in comparison to the 1980 Crispa Redmanizers, which is regarded by many observers as the greatest PBA team of all time, achieved during the 1980 PBA All-Filipino Conference.


Crispa was humming in the 1980 All-Filipino Conference.

The league at the time featured ten teams. The 1980 tournament was also the first legitimate All-Filipino conference; in previous seasons, also-ran teams such were allowed to include one import in the lineup, even in the homegrown tourney. Thus, Mariwasa-Honda featured 6’6” “Big” Billy Robinson in the 1977 All-Filipino conference, while Filmanbank had Israel “Cisco” Oliver for its 1978 campaign. Each of these teams ended up making the finals, although both of them still ended up losing to the league’s powerhouse teams, Mariwasa-Honda to Crispa in 1977 and Filmanbank to Toyota in 1978.

In the 1980 tournament, Crispa steamrolled all its opponents in the single-round eliminations, en route to a 9-0 record. The Redmanizers, along with 5 other teams, then faced each other once in the quarterfinals, with Crispa remaining unblemished with a 5-0 card. In the 4-team semifinals, the Redmanizers once more flexed its muscle, winning their next three games to sweep the semis and easily make it to the best-of-five finals. At this point, they were already 17-0 and talk about sweeping the conference was rife.


Freddie Hubalde soars above the rim for a layup against Honda-Mariwasa.

The task of denying Crispa’s historic feat fell on the shoulders of their arch-rivals, the Toyota Tamaraws. Crispa was just three games away from not just winning the AFC, but also sweeping the entire conference with an immaculate 20-0 card. It wasn’t an easy task for the Tamaraws as the Redmanizers proved to be dominant and practically invincible, throughout the tournament. Observers openly wondered if Toyota were capable of beating Crispa, if only once in the finals.

True to form, Crispa stamped its class, defeating the Tamaraws in the first two games of the series by an average of 13.5 points. Everyone at Crispa was delivering – from the eventual season MVP Philip Cezar to hotshot Atoy Co, to speedster Bernie Fabiosa, to the cool and calculating Freddie Hubalde. Even Abet Guidaben, then a far second to Toyota’s Ramon Fernandez as the best center in the league, was contributing.

On the other hand, the Tamaraws were struggling. Unknown to fans, Toyota’s locker room was practically imploding by then.

Toyota was being coached by Fortunato Acuña, a former cager who played for the Tamaraws for a couple of seasons. He served as an assistant coach to Dante Silverio before assuming head coaching duties in 1979, when Silverio resigned during the 3rd Conference.

The implosion in the Toyota locker room became evident in the third game of the series, when Acuña benched team captain Robert Jaworski in the first half. Stunned Toyota fans in the crowd openly wondered if Jaworski was injured. Team manager Don Pablo Carlos approached Acuña and asked the coach three times why Jaworski was not being fielded in the game. All three times, Acuña didn’t respond. At halftime, with Crispa ahead, an exasperated Carlos fired Acuña and took over as coach of the Tamaraws.


Fittingly, the Toyota Tamaraws stood between the Crispa Redmanizers and history.

I remember the broadcast panel wondering why Jaworski wasn’t fielded in the first half. They became even more shocked not to see Acuña in the bench at the start of the second half. Carlos took over, who finally sent instructions for Jaworski to enter the game. The Toyota skipper lifted the morale of the Tamaraws with his sheer presence on the court.

Crispa, for its part, wasn’t exactly affected by Jaworski’s presence. Instead, jitters came their way as pressure mounted in the realization that history was about to be made. The nerves took a toll on them, coupled with the fact that Toyota was playing inspired ball, rallying behind their team manager turned coach and their team captain. The game ended with Toyota eking out a 97-94 victory, denying Crispa its historic immaculate record. This was regarded as one of the most emotional games in the league because of the drama and personalities involved.

Of course, Crispa recovered in Game 4 and plastered the Tamaraws 105-91 to win its 4th All-Filipino title. And while the Jaworski benching became the talk in various pubs and watering holes – there were hardly any coffee shops in Manila back then, except those in plush 5-star hotels – no one could deny the sheer dominance of the Redmanizers in this conference. They ended up with a 20-1 card, which to date, remains the best win-loss record ever registered by a team for one conference in PBA history.

The Tropang Texters may not be able to duplicate this feat exactly; even if they sweep their remaining five games, they would end up with a 15-1 slate, with their only loss coming, paradoxically, in their first game.

But this is not to say that it is much less of an accomplishment in terms of dominance. In a league that has seen seven different champions in the past eleven conferences, winning a championship has become very difficult. Winning back-to-back titles is even more impressive, considering the last team to do this was Barangay Ginebra in the 2004 transition season. And winning the conference with only one loss, not unlike what Crispa did 31 years ago, can only be deemed historic.

(With due credit to Percival O. Flores for the actual scores as posted at MYPBA.com and Rey Joble’s article on GMA News Online entitled “After 30 years, Crispa’s win streak still unmatched”)

Crispa photos courtesy of Rafe Bartholomew.