Filipinos likely no-show on Asia basketball meet in China

MANILA, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Filipinos basketball players might miss out on the upcoming Asian Championship for reasons none other than the unsettling disputes between two domestic associations claiming for power, local media reported Thursday.

The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), the more powerful group, has rejected a summon by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to attend a meeting next month in Geneva to discuss complaints filed by members of the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), the weaker group whose legitimacy to represent the country's basketball players was stripped off in a power struggle last year.

"My main concern is if the SBP doesn't bend to the wishes of the FIBA, it will suspend the Philippines from taking part in the FIBA-Asia and that's not fair, not right," the Manila Bulletin quoted SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan as saying.

Pangilinan said the SBP has forwarded a letter to the FIBA, asking the international body to move the disputes-resolving meeting to a later date, precisely after the FIBA-Asia championships to be held this August in China, where top three finishers earn the right to represent the continent in the 2010 world championships in Turkey.

Pangilinan did not reveal what complaints await the SBP in Geneva but all information indicates that it has to do with which group can best represent the Philippines on basketball -- the most popular sports over the archipelago and the league of which teems with lucrative business opportunities.

Pangilinan, a passionate basketball lover and chairman of the country's telecommunication giant PLDT group, assumed the presidency of SBP in 2008 after a long and arduous battle with the former BAP stakeholders. FIBA threw its backing behind Pangilinan's leadership, assuring that "any communication coming from the former organization BAP" will be disregarded, the report said.

Disputes between the SBP and BAP previously prompted FIBA to ban Filipino basketball players to attend the 2007 Southeast Asian Games held ironically in the Philippines.