Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, the country's official national sports agency for basketball, is taking care of business in spite of the pathetic and continuing inanities being mounted by the people-on-the-other-side. Undoing decades of incompetence by the people-on-the-other-side is difficult enough as it is. Actually having to deal with those who simply refuse to wither away like the underhand freethrow makes it all the more difficult. Still, the SBP has a job to do and is steadily seeing to everything that needs to be done.

Late last week at the PLDT corporate headquarters in Makati City (and auspiciously enough on my birthday at that) the SBP Board approved 22 out of 25 nominees to the Board. From this list will come the President of the SBP; general elections for this purpose will be held sometime in early June this year. The President shall have a term of four years or from this year up to 2012. This is fully in line with the agreements entered into with the FIBA and the commitments to FIBA made by the Philippines as the country was trying to make its way back during our suspension from international competitions served a couple of years ago.

Some of these 22 individuals include PLDT chief and current SBP President Manuel Pangilinan, and from the PBA Ricky Vargas, Tony Chua and Sonny Barrios, representing the professional sector; Mike Romero and Cecilio Pedro representing the Philippine Basketball League; Junjun Capistrano of the UAAP, D Lozano of the NCAA, J Adalem of NAASCU and Attorney B Estenzo of CESAFI representing the school-based leagues; Rey Gamboa of the Philippine Collegiate Champions League, Yayoy Alcoseba of the VAAA, and a whole host of other key basketball personalities such as Nick Jorge and Noli Eala representing all of the key geographical and organizational sectors of the sport in this country.

One can easily see that this is a veritable who's who of Philippine basketball. One would have to truly be many diodes short of a full circuit board not to realize how much time and effort is being out in by the SBP to ensure that the country's national basketball program will always be in good and safe hands. Announcements and media coordination are being done in order to ensure that every thing going on in the SBP is indeed above board and totally transparent.

For our part it would be in Philippine basketball's best interest if Pangilinan were to continue on as President and Patrick Gregorio remain as Executive Director. These two have weathered quite the political hailstorm of black propaganda over the last couple of months and have shown both resiliency and resolve in still getting the job done. If only for this they rightfully deserve to remain as the top two men in charge of SBP.

This comes on the heels of a recent media briefing presided over by Pangilinan as he reported on the present activities being undertaken by the SBP. All of the major media networks and organizations including BASKETBOLISTA were present during that briefing at the PLDT mezzanine conference room.

Now if only we could do something about the people-on-the-other-side…