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?

Cecilio Pedro and Lamoiyan Corporation's newest team, the Licealiz Hair Doctors, are up next.

Cecilio Pedro of Lamoiyan Corporation is not quite as prominent a name in the sporting world as colleagues Mikee Romero, Bong Tan, or Danding Cojuangco, but he's every bit as big a supporter of amateur commercial basketball. His team has competed in the PBL under several different incarnations: the Hapee Toothpaste Complete Protectors, Dazz Dishwashing Paste, Kutitap Toothpase, and now, the Licealiz Hair Doctors, which features the dynamic duo of Chris Tiu and Jayvee Casio. That has to be my favorite team name ever.

Pedro is also known in showbiz circles as a close personal friend of German Moreno. In fact, when watching Kuya Germs's "Walang Tulugan with the Master Showman", television commercials for Hapee Toothpaste dominate the breaks. As a result, Dazz Dishwashing Detergent is always among the products given by Kuya Germs to his guests (alongside with cans of Birch Tree powdered milk).

But Pedro is an acclaimed name in the business world, too, and his success in a field by multinational giants Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever continues to be an inspiration to local entrepreneurs everywhere. He was also hailed by Ernst & Young as the country's Entrepreneur of the Year, not just because of his success in the boardroom, but also because of his commitment to social change:

While enjoying the success of being the first Filipino to ever penetrate the toothpaste market that has been dominated by multinational companies, Pedro has chosen to use his entrepreneurial skills to help provide opportunities to others. A staunch advocate of the hearing impaired, Pedro helps provide free college education to at least 200 deaf-mute students through the Deaf Evangelistic Alliance Foundation, Inc. (DEAF), which he currently chairs.

Pedro also employs over 30 deaf-mute staff in his company, and helps provide them with free housing. To narrow the communication gap between his hearing-impaired and hearing personnel, Pedro has also required his managers to learn sign language.

(No more jokes from me here. You try making fun of that.)

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?

Danding Cojuangco and his Magnolia Purewater Wizards is next.



Danding Cojuangco was the man originally nicknamed "Pacman", not for his sporting exploits, but because of his penchant for gobbling up companies. Ina Stewart-Santiago, writing about Ninoy Aquino's assassination and Cojuangco's influence during Martial Law, cited a 1991 Wall Street journal report on the man:

At the height of cronyism in the Philippines, Cojuangco controlled $1.5 billion in corporate assets, an amount estimated to equal 25% of the country’s GNP. He headed an agricultural and industrial conglomerate with interests in diverse areas as coconut, sugar, agri-business, banking, and a host of others. The *Wall Street Journal* observed that Cojuangco attempted to create “cartels in rice, sugar, flour, groceries, and soft drinks but ran out of time.” Referring to Cojuangco’s tendency to create monopolies in the industries where he had investments, a journalist gave him the nickname Pacman, a reference to the computer game where the object is to eat up as much as you can. Cojuangco’s personal net worth was estimated at $500 million, making him among the country’s richest men.

So this dossier would only included sports-related matters, because writing about everything evil Cojuangco ever did would need a blog unto its own.

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, Jappy Pascual and the Pharex Generix.

Ah, finally, a PBL team that Asterix, Obelix, and Vitalstatistix would love! Pharex is the generics arm of Pascual Laboratories, the country's second-largest local pharmaceutical company behind Unilab. The company's operations are still dwarfed by overall industry no. 1 Unilab, but then again, Pascual Laboratories' founder was never buddy-buddy with the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

But digging through the files, I couldn't find anything particularly interesting about the owner or the Pascual family, except for the fact that Jappy Pascual is the Pascual in Lyn Ching-Pascual.

So instead, after the jump is a discussion of the state of the generic drugs industry in the Philippines.

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, Bong Tan and the Cobra Energy Drink Warriors, formerly the Bacchus Energy Drink Raiders.

Tall, cut, and athletic, with an icy stare and sharp Chinese features, Bong Tan has a look that's straight out of a Hongkong gangster flick. But perhaps more intimidating than his features and his aura is his full name: Lucio Tan, Jr. The son of the controversial taipan has been, true to his name, an infamous figure in the world of Philippine basketball, even though he has stayed out of the limelight in recent years, focusing instead in his activities in his family's numerous businesses.

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.