Host nation's top sport missing from SEA Games
Host nation's top sport missing from SEA Games
Associated Press, Manila
Basketball, the No. 1 and most-passionately followed sport in the Philippines, will be a no-show at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games because of a squabble involving international and host country organizers.
A men's team from the Philippines has won the Games competition at every edition except 1989, is the five-time defending champion and traditionally has been strong at Olympic Games and world championships.
But despite lobbying by national bodies and government officials, a court challenge and polls showing basketball was the top medal hope for the host country, men's and women's competitions at the 11-country Games that begins Sunday has been scrapped.
The dispute involves the Philippine Olympic Committee's decision to recognize the newly-formed Philippine Basketball Federation (PBF) as the only mandated group to organize basketball in the country. But the PBF is not recognized by FIBA, the international basketball federation, as its country affiliate.
The bottom line: since FIBA recognizes an older group -- the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), which the Philippines Olympic Committee expelled this year as its sanctioning body over a dispute involving the makeup of the national team -- it has suspended the Philippines from competing in any of its competitions, including the SEA Games.
When FIBA threatened any country that plays against the Philippines with sanctions, organizers decided to scrap the competition. A court ordered the Olympic committee to reinstate the BAP, but the committee ignored the court directive.
The court order gave BAP president Joey Lina, a former senator, some initial optimism that the Philippines would be able to defend its title.
"The Filipino people whose favorite sport is basketball are definitely ecstatic over this development," he said after the court case. "We have a very good chance of defending our title."
But national Olympic committee secretary-general Steve Hontiveros said the decision not to hold the basketball event was final.
"It's too late to do anything about it as the SEAG Federation already approved a resolution shelving basketball in this year's SEA Games," he said this week.
On Friday, the Social Weather Stations research group published the results of a poll that showed 44 percent of Filipinos expected the host country to win a medal in basketball.
The Social Weather Stations research group surveyed 1,200 adults in Manila and several other cities in late August and early September, weeks before the dispute threatened to cut the sport from the Games.
"The exclusion of basketball from the 23rd Southeast Asian Games is surely a big disappointment for Filipinos, since it is one of the two sports with the greatest public expectation of winning a medal," said the survey.