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.