Nice, rainy Friday, with a couple of huge PBA games tonight: Rain or Shine versus Ginebra for an outright quarterfinals spot, and Derby Ace versus San Miguel for an automatic semifinals berth. Just how important is that semis spot, particularly for Derby Ace? My main man, Ryan “The Genius” Gregorio has never lost a semifinals series in his PBA career.

Meanwhile, some good reads to tide you over till tipoff:

• Charles Tiu, the younger brother of Smart Gilas team captain and all-around good guy Chris Tiu, wrote a good blog post on Yahoo! about the recently-concluded Manila invitational tournament. He’s a little biased, sure, but his post has got a lot of great tidbits for Gilas fans: “During the awarding ceremonies, I approached Coach Mario Palma and told him that as an Asian, I wish that his team will do well and represent Asia well in the World Championships. Without introducing who I was, he said thank you, gave me a hug and told me to give my brother a hug (he said we look alike and that’s how he knew) because he was a great player and he wasn’t able to congratulate him. I couldn’t have been any prouder after hearing a coach like that have such high regard for my brother.”


• The Philippine Star’s Joey Villar reported yesterday that Ray Parks, son of legendary PBA import Bobby Parks, will be suiting up for NU next year. Is that accurate? Doesn’t the UAAP have a two-year residency rule for players coming from foreign high schools? Parks has been playing high school ball in Tennessee.
  
  UPDATE: Ray is in the Philippines right now, and it isn’t clear whether he’s going back to Tennessee’s Melrose Academy for senior year in high school. If he spends the year in a local high school, then he’d be eligible for the UAAP next season. I think.


• Ugh. GMANews.TV reports that Air 21’s Lito Alvarez is likely to be named the next commissioner of the Burea of Customs. I hope he doesn’t run the bureau the same way he ran Air 21, where he sold players and helped richer teams cheat by acting as conduit in lopsided trades. The appointment feels like a political ploy; Alvarez’ boss, Bert Lina, was BOC commissioner for several months before he resigned from the Arroyo cabinet along with the Hyatt 10. If there’s any bright side to this, at least Alvarez will be out of the PBA. I hope he stays out. Hell, I hope Air 21 sells its useless franchise already.


• The Queensberry Rules is my favorite boxing blog bar none, and I really enjoyed the latest piece: The Six Deadly Sins of Internet Boxing Writing. It doesn’t just apply to boxing though, but all kinds of Internet writing. Good read for both fans, who should know what to expect from Internet writers, and for aspiring writers and bloggers.


• Finally, happier moments for Kris and James, which happened just this March. Makes you wonder what the hell happened between then and now.

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?

Gabe Freeman and Arwind Santos will be teaming up for San Miguel this year

Listed below are ten statements about the PBA Fiesta Conference, which kicks off this Sunday, March 21. In the comments, leave a post on whether you think each statement is true or false, and a short explanation why this is so.

1. Bonbon Custodio will replace Joseph Yeo’s production at Sta. Lucia


2. Barako Coffee/Harbour Centre will finish out of the cellar for the first time in four conferences


3. You will actually care about the Coca-Cola Tigers this conference


4. Yancy de Ocampo will see meaningful minutes for Ginebra


5. Mike Cortez and Renren Ritualo will be an elite PBA backcourt for Air 21


6. Rain or Shine’s Jai Lewis will be the best import for the conference


7. Alex Cabagnot will make it to the semifinals for the first time in his career with San Miguel


8. Talk N Text’s Mac Cardona will lead locals in scoring this conference


9. Samigue Eman will make an immediate impact in the Alaska front court


10. The Derby Ace Llamados will win back-to-back championships

My answers, after the jump.

After a crazy quarterfinal round, the stage is set for the PBA Philippine Cup final four. The cast features 3 teams that belong to the San Miguel Corporation, which again reinforces perceptions by the league’s critics that the PBA is an SMC league. Some even say that the PBA is set up so that SMC teams would always end up on the winning end of most tournaments.

The grand conspiracy argument doesn’t hold much water. If it were true, there’s no way Sta. Lucia would have won the 2008 Philippine Cup over Purefoods in a close seven-game series wherein James Yap was suspended for one game for the same flagrant 2 penalty called on Ranidel de Ocampo last Friday. Imagine David Stern suspending Kobe Bryant on an iffy call in an NBA finals series against a team like the Milwaukee Bucks.

That doesn’t mean to say that SMC teams do not have an advantage. The PBA landscape today gives the rich teams a leg up when it comes to acquiring talent, and each of the SMC teams have taken advantage to build up its arsenal.

By my count, Ginebra, Purefoods, and San Miguel have acquired a total of 19 players through lopsided trades over the past 5 PBA seasons. The trend started prior to the 2006-07 season, when Ginebra and San Miguel ransacked the roster of erstwhile sister team Coca-Cola just before the corporation let go of the franchise. Over the next several years, each SMC team found more willing partners in Red Bull and Air 21 who would let go of their star players for a song.

	Acquired by	From	Season	Notes
Marc Pingris	Purefoods	Air 21	2005-06	Traded to San Miguel for Enrico Villanueva in 2008, acquired back by Purefoods in 2009
Rudy Hatfield	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Went off the deep end after leading Ginebra to a Philippine Cup championship
Billy Mamaril	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07
Rafi Reavis	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Traded to Purefoods in 2009
Ronald Tubid	Ginebra	Air 21	2006-07
Lordy Tugade	San Miguel	Red Bull	2006-07
Enrico Villanueva	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Purefoods in 2008, traded to Ginebra in 2009
Larry Fonacier	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Alaska in 2008
Junthy Valenzuela	Ginebra	Red Bull	2007-08
Mick Pennisi	San Miguel	Red Bull	2008-09
Rich Alvarez	Purefoods	Red Bull	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
Cyrus Baguio	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
JC Intal	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Doug Kramer	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Homer Se	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Don Allado	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Celino Cruz	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
KG Canaleta	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Arwind Santos	San Miguel	Air 21/BK	2009-10

The data does not reflect the indirect benefits of one SMC team acquiring new star players to its sister teams. For example, San Miguel benefitted when Ginebra acquired Hatfield, Mamaril, and Reavis from Coke, because it opened the door for the Beermen to trade for Ginebra’s Rommel Adducul, who had become expendable. When San Miguel acquired Villanueva, Adducul was shipped to Purefoods. Pingris found his way back to Purefoods from San Miguel this season after the arrival of Santos to the Beermen’s camp.

I also did not include in the table the first round draft picks acquired by the Beermen from Coke during the ransacking. San Miguel used the second overall pick in 2007 to draft Samigue Eman, and the third pick in the 2008 draft to trade for Jay Washington. These were non-trivial assets.

Of course, it’s not just the SMC teams doing this. Talk N Text has been just as brazen about stockpiling talent over the past several years. Another rich franchise, Coca-Cola, seems to be going in that direction.

Meanwhile, the Photokina (Red Bull/Barako Bull) and Lina (Air 21/Burger King) franchises have had no scruples about letting their players go to the highest bidders. Sta. Lucia, a franchise beset by financial difficulty, might be going down the same path. In the PBA board, only Alaska and Rain or Shine might be inclined to pursue changes to the system, and even then they are vastly outnumbered.

There hasn’t been nearly enough outrage from the fans. I tried to incite outrage when Burger King sold off Santos to San Miguel, but it was met by general apathy. The Filipino basketball fan’s mindset is rarely about playing fair, and mostly about getting an advantage at any cost. It runs true from college basketball – seriously, check out the message board discussions on high school prospects by fans of elite schools – up to the pros. Hell, think about how Smart Gilas fans wanted Japeth Aguilar on the team, at any cost, relationships be damned.

We want our teams to cut every corner to get the best players. Should it come as any surprise when they do exactly that?