With Bert Lina back in control of the franchise, Burger King is back making lopsided trades, trading all-star Cyrus Baguio and Celino Cruz to Ginebra and Purefoods, respectively, on Friday in exchange for a bag of Ei-AJi potato chips little-used swingman Aaron Aban and future draft picks. From the story, team governor Lito Alvarez indicated that Baguio had been unhappy with his role with the team, but if you believe that, then I have a Burger King branch to sell you.

Baguio and Cruz were acquired last December when Harbour Centre owner Mikee Romero took over the basketball operations of the former Air 21 franchise from the Lina group. This deal was contingent on Romero investing in Burger King following a merger between Metro Pacific and Harbour Centre. However, the deal fell through, and control of the team was returned to Lina and Alvarez.

Lopsided trades have always been the M.O. of the Lina franchise, trading off their stars in exchange for draft picks (which they could use to get young prospects) and, allegedly, cash considerations from the league's more well-off teams. Since making their pro-league debut in 2002, the team has traded away stars such as Renren Ritualo, Yancy de Ocampo, Jay Washington, Mac Cardona, Marc Pingris, Ranidel de Ocampo, KG Canaleta, Ronald Tubid, Roger Yap, JC Intal, Mark Telan, and Don Allado, among many others. How awesome would that team have been?

What makes it worse is that Alvarez tries to spin the trades as positive or pins the blame on the departing player. And sportswriters are stupid/lazy enough to buy into it.

In eight years of participation in the PBA, the team has made the finals only once and has never won a championship. Serves a bush-league franchise just right.

The economic downturn is affecting everyone, and it has hit local amateur commercial basketball particularly hard. The Philippine Basketball League, the traditional breeding ground for Philippine basketball's rising stars, beginning their new tournament while reeling from the departure of two members (Burger King and Toyota Otis), are down to five teams.

It makes sense. Unlike the PBA, the PBL is truly borne out of love: companies pay teams to play in near-empty arenas and there is next to no one watching on television.

This is Fire Quinito's primer for each team, with a different twist: a profile of each team owner. Who are they, and what do they do? And why the hell are they still in the PBL?

On tap, Mikee Romero and the newly-christened Oracle Residences Titans, winners of six straight PBL titles as the Harbour Centre Batang Pier.

Mikee Romero is youthful. Seriously, every story ever written about the man contains the word youthful in them. You would think that local sportswriter have not discovered [Shift + F7] yet. Do they still use typewriters?

A couple of years ago, I was browsing through the Inquirer (back when newspapers were still in vogue) and came across a full-page ad congratulating Romero for earning his Ph.D. from the International Management of Academy and Economics. I was impressed, even though I have never heard of that school before, because I figured a Ph.D. is still a Ph.D. Then a few months later I read that Melanie Marquez graduated cum laude from the very same school. Then I wasn't so impressed with Romero's Ph.D. anymore.

(Quick showbiz tangent: A few years ago, I was working for a showbiz news website, and we were gathering profile sheets on every celebrity we could find. A colleague handed me Melanie's profile, which she had filled out by hand, and pointed me to a section that said:

Favorite book: Bible [King James version]
Favorite author: King James

Awesome.)

I also discovered recently that IAME was a couple of blocks away from my aparment, and I pass by the place when grocery shopping. Let's just say that the facility is closer to AMA than AIM.