DLSU head to contest UAAP ban

La Salle yesterday confirmed Mark Benitez and Tim Gatchalian used fabricated Philippine Educational Placement Test Certificates (PEPTCRs) to gain varsity eligibility in the UAAP and named Raul Lacson, a contractual statistician of the school’s men’s basketball team, as the one responsible for securing the cagers’ spurious documents.

Former assistant team manager Manny Salgado was also identified as possibly the other person with prior knowledge as to how the spurious documents of the players had been obtained, according to the report of La Salle’s fact-finding committee formed to look into the alleged ineligibility.

The two, however, denied they were involved in the two cases.

DLSU president Bro. Armin Luistro, FSC, and school executive vice president Dr. Carmelita Quebengco, after emerging from the holding room, disclosed the identities in a press conference at the Hyatt Hotel yesterday and said they are leaving the school’s fate to the UAAP board.

Luistro, however, said he would contest any drastic action by the UAAP board on the school.

"If we will be suspended on the basis that there was complicity of the school, meaning we deliberately delayed the disclosure of the findings or tried to cover up the anomalies, then we will fight this all the way to the Supreme Court because the school was not involved in any wrongdoing," said Luistro.

La Salle said it has submitted its report to the UAAP board but the league decision on the case will have to be deferred owing to the unavailability of the members, most of whom are abroad or in the ongoing UniGames in Bacolod, to convene in an emergency meeting. The next UAAP board is scheduled to meet third week of November.

Fr. Maximino Rendon, C.M., UAAP Season 68 president, has earlier said that the UAAP will deliberate on the issue once it receives the official results of La Salle’s investigation, which will have to be concurred upon by majority of the members of the UAAP board.

The UAAP also said if it is not satisfied with the La Salle report, it might be forced to conduct its own investigation or consider banning La Salle for next year, like what it did to Adamson in 1994 when it fielded an ineligible player in Marlou Aquino.

Except for the naming of Salgado as the former school official who might have had a hand in the scam, nothing that the mediamen knew of was disclosed during the presscon. There was no explosive revelation as to who are responsible for the mess as La Salle released written statement stating that "while the school recognizes that the two players may have some personal responsibility over these incidents, we also understand their vulnerability given their age and sincere desire to be a part of the school’s basketball team."

It added: "However, the university does not and will never condone this conduct and will continue to commit itself to raising the bar of excellence and fair play." Lacson, who was earlier referred to as the team liaison officer, and Salgado, who was recently banned from the UAAP for rapping FEU’s Arwind Santos in Game One of the FEU-La Salle finals, said they had no personal knowledge or did not know about the questioned documents of the players.

Meanwhile, Servillano dela Cruz, a member of La Salle High School Class of ’56, also appeared at the presscon and blamed the school for the mess.

"We don’t believe that you know nothing about this case," said a fuming dela Cruz in Filipino. He insisted that the school had knowledge of the fake documents and lashed out at the school officials for besmirching the reputation of the institution.

Quebengco, however, dismissed dela Cruz’s charges and reiterated that the school had nothing to do in obtaining the fake PEP test results.

La Salle, acting on the growing concerns among school registrars that fake documents were being submitted to the DepEd (Department of Education) for admission purposes, said it discovered the ineligibility of Benitez only during the recent finals of the 68th UAAP season where the Green Archers lost to the FEU Tamaraws.

The Green Archers later offered to return the 2004 trophy, forfeit its runner-up finish this year and conduct its own investigation.

Although the school said it did receive an initial verification from the DepEd that one PEPTCR document was fake and another was subject to further confirmation as early as Aug. 18, it was not until Sept. 30 that the matter was brought to the attention of the authorities.

"The delay can be attributed to administrative procedures that had to be followed and the apparent lack of urgency that the matter deserved. We assure you that there was no deliberate attempt to withhold information," said La Salle in a statement.

It added that after the matter was brought to the attention of the authorities, it was deemed necessary to re-verify the matter to the DepEd in order to exclude any possible error of eligibility. La Salle said it received the result of the re-verification on Oct. 7 and immediately informed the UAAP president about the case.

"At no point prior to the receipt of the results of the voluntary authentication of the PEPTCR documents that there was any knowledge by the school or any of its representatives to the UAAP Board that any member of its team may have submitted spurious admission documents," the report added.