THE Philippine Basketball Association remains hopeful that its currently suspended Season 45 would be able resume amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Meeting via teleconference on Saturday night, the league board of governors came to an agreement to defer any definite decision on the fate of the ongoing season to August, believing that by that time there would be more clarity on the status of COVID-19 and its impact.

“We will wait until August to decide whether it’s still a go or a season cancellation,” said PBA commissioner Willie Marcial after the teleconference that reportedly lasted for two hours.

The news was shared as other sporting organizations came out with their decisions last week as to their calendar for the rest of the year.

The Philippine Sports Commission, for one, deemed it fit to cancel all activities and events under its watch till December to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all athletes while focusing its efforts, including budget, on how to fight and survive the current crisis.

Collegiate leagues are also bracing for an altered staging for its next season, with the University Athletic Association of the Philippines not discounting even the possibility of scrapping the entire Season 83 as it remains to be seen how COVID-19 would affect the holding of the school year from which the UAAP takes its cue from.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is also in the process of carefully evaluating its options as to the holding of Season 96, including delaying its start to later this year.

Incidentally both the UAAP and NCAA abruptly ended their preceding seasons as it became evident that continuing with them would be an impossibility with COVID-19 still a growing concern.

The PBA in March decided to suspend its ongoing season after the government declared a state of public health emergency and put the entire Luzon on enhanced community quarantine as a means to mitigate the spread of the highly contagious respiratory disease.

Under such a setup, among those strictly prohibited are mass gatherings of any type, including the holding of sporting events.

At the time of the tournament suspension, only one game had been played in the season-opening PBA All-Filipino Cup, that between defending champions San Miguel Beermen and Magnolia Hotshots Pambansang Manok, with the former winning, 94-78.

The league was hoping to resume playing in April, then this month, but with the ECQ still in effect in the National Capital Region, action remains shut.

PBA officials said it is highly likely the league would not be able to complete its three-conference format for this season and may have to settle for two conferences, or even one.

Meanwhile, the board unanimously passed a proposal to suspend any player trade and transactions to sign up free-agent players while the league is on hiatus.

It, however, will be allowing teams to re-sign players whose contracts have lapsed.

Teams may opt not to sign the players right away while the league is in a temporary halt. However, they have to sign the players within five days as soon as practices resume or the players become unrestricted free agents. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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