FORMER Ateneo varsity player Jai Reyes and veteran basketball team manager and organizer Buddy Encarnado see Filbasket, the country’s newest cage league, as another avenue for local players to make a living amid the COVID pandemic.
“We realized that with the pandemic, how our jobs were quickly taken away from us and we didn’t really have a chance. So that’s Filbasket’s advocacy for our players, coaches and the whole industry for our inaugural tournament,” Reyes said in the Philippine Sportswriters Association online forum.
“We’re envisioning something that we can build from the ground up by the players and for the players and something that we can depend on for the long term,” added Reyes, stressing that Filbasket will be an amateur league despite the fact that the coaches and players will be paid.
“We are a product of necessity. The players right now are out of jobs,” said Encarnado, who has been deeply involved in the local basketball scene since the Philippine Amateur Basketball League with ESQ in the late 80s.
Eleven teams will compete in the inaugural edition of the league, among them the Davao Tigers, San Juan Knights, Pasig-Sta. Lucia Realtors and Basilan, which are also playing in the MPBL.
“It is a pity that no one is looking after our commercial players. As a longtime manager I know the plight of the players. They cannot have a normal job to provide for their families.
The plight of the families of our players remain a topmost priority,” he noted. “This is our primordial concern.
“So let us begin and allow these players to enjoy the thrill of an honest-to-goodness competition.”
A veteran basketball hand, the former Sta. Lucia Realty team manager stressed that he would also make it a point to maintain the integrity of league “and protect it from the ‘bacteria’ of game-fixing.”
