Disappointed at how Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano distributed committee chairmanships among congressmen who supported him in his bid for the Speakership, 30 PDP-Laban congressmen, among them presidential son Paolo Duterte, bolted the party and joined the National Unity Party. But as the new alliance still has to take aggressive action against Speaker Cayetano, I take the lull in political hostilities as an opportunity to turn my attention to an epic battle that is already raging.
Two great empires are engaged in a great battle for dominance. Their elite forces exchanged fire last Sunday. Game 1 of the Philippine Basketball Association Governors Cup Finals between the flagship teams of corporate conglomerates San Miguel Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. was played last Sunday. Metro Pacific’s TNT Katropa scored a victory. But there will be more encounters before one side can claim it has won the war. The war is expected to be protracted as the opposing forces are of equal strength.
The two teams are laden with so much talent that the absence of Super Marcio Lassiter from the San Miguel lineup and of Machine Gun Kelly from the TNT roster will have no impact on the performance of the teams in this series. The San Miguel Beermen are veterans of many successful campaigns. Men like Alex Cabagnot, Arwind Santos, Chris Ross, and Jun Mar Fajardo are members of past champion teams. They have been reinforced by young but talented players Christian Standhardinger, Terrence Romeo, and Von Pessumal. There are also Matt Ganuelas-Rosser and Kelly Nabong, who can be relied to put in quality minutes.
TNT Katropa has battle-scarred Jason Castro, Ryan Reyes, Jay Washington, the Gilas Pilipinas members Troy Rosario and Roger Pogoy, and the surprising Don Trollano. Yousef Taha and Brian Heruela are capable relievers for Troy Rosario and Jason Castro. Their reinforcements from the US — Chris McCullough for San Miguel and Terrence Jones for TNT — are both NBA first round draft picks. Their performance in PBA games substantiated their reputation. Both are strong candidates for Best Import for this conference.
I say TNT has an edge over San Miguel when it comes to coaching. While San Miguel’s Leo Austria has more years of coaching, TNT’s de facto head coach Mark Dickel has international exposure. He showed that experience by outcoaching the winningest PBA coach, Tim Cone, in their semi-final series.
True, San Miguel under Austria has won the Philippine Cup trophy for five consecutive years. I attribute that though to Jun Mar Fajardo who has no match among local big men. Barangay’s Greg Slaughter is taller by two inches, but that is all he has, sheer height. He can only shoot facing the goal. He doesn’t have the footwork of Jun Mar. The Beermen don’t do as well in conferences with imports as Jun Mar is somehow neutralized by them. That reflects on Austria’s ability.
This series between San Miguel and TNT may bring back to old basketball aficionados memories of the fierce rivalry between the Crispa Redmanizers and the Toyota Tamaraws in the early days of the PBA, or even that between the Yco Painters and Ysmael Steel Admirals in the era of the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association or MICAA. Ah, those were the years when players also worked for the company they represented on the basketball court. There was very little movement of players from one team to another. Most of them played for only one team during their entire career. That made for tight bonds among teammates. They played their hearts out for the company and teammates, making competitions more intense.
Now rivalry is between business empires. San Miguel and Metro Pacific do not compete in the same market. San Miguel is into consumer products, Metro Pacific into consumer services. But they do compete fiercely on business opportunities. They have carried their intense rivalry over to the basketball court. San Miguel owns the basketball teams the San Miguel Beermen, the Ginebra Gin Kings, and the Purefoods/Magnolia Hot Shots. Metro Pacific has Talk ’N Text KaTropa, the Meralco Bolts, and the NLEX Road Warriors.
They have rotated their personnel around their teams to meet the needs of sister teams. Purefoods Grand Slam Coach Tim Cone learned while on vacation that he had been named coach of sister team Ginebra, presumably to bring back the crowd’s darling to its old winning ways and thus bolster the sales of the product. Tim Cone did make the team win again.
Right after the Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings beat the Meralco Bolts for the championship trophy of the PBA Governors’ Cup in 2016, Ginebra rookie Scottie Thompson hugged Coach Tim Cone. Tim said to Scottie, “Nice one rook, first championship, more to go.” I wrote then that one corporate giant will try to prevent that from happening.
After that 2016 season, Metro Pacific started rebuilding its teams. Multiple champion coach Yeng Guiao was lured away from Rain or Shine to draw the game plans for NLEX. He immediately traded to get back the graduates of college basketball he had recruited for his previous teams and molded into PBA stars: Cyrus Baguio and Larry Fonacier, and, recently, Jericho Cruz.
Having recruited UAAP standouts Troy Rosario and Roger Pogoy, TNT moved its former mainstay but slowed down Ranidel de Ocampo to sister team Meralco. When TNT Coach Jong Uichico was given another job, I thought Tab Baldwin, TNT’s former consultant, would eventually take over the TNT coaching job. He didn’t but his protégé, Mark Dickel, did. And last week Dickel and his boys eliminated defending champion Ginebra.
Meralco finally got a quality center in Raymond Almazan. NLEX will have The Phenomenon Keifer Ravena and possibly Kevin Alas back in the lineup for the third conference. The battle for the last PBA crown this year may very well be between the forces of the two business empires.
Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. is a retired corporate executive, business consultant, and management professor. He has been a politicized citizen since his college days in the late 1950s.
