Remembering Bobong Velez

It was with tremendous sadness that I learned that our former boss, Carlos “Bobong” Velez has passed away. Bobong had been ill for some time, and had retired to Dumaguete where he was more comfortable. The entire Philippine sports broadcasting industry owes him a debt that can never be repaid, as he held generations of producers, writers, editors and commentators to a higher standard than they had ever known. To a larger extent than most people realize, we are where we are because of him.

Bobong was head of public relations for the young Philippine Basketball Association, and subsequently negotiated for the television rights, to the amusement of his friends like the league’s first legal counsel and later, commissioner Rudy Salud. Velez had a plan, his restless mind bursting with ideas on how to catapult the PBA to the front of people’s minds. He also had a team of announcers that, whether they liked it or not, were going to become the pillars of what is considered the golden age of basketball and boxing on television.

When I joined Vintage Enterprises in 1990 upon the invitation of my college professor and anchorman Sev Sarmenta, legends like Joe Cantada, Ed Picson, Pinggoy Pengson, Joaqui Trillo, Quinito Henson, Romy Kintanar, Andy Jao, Butch Maniego and Sev were already carving out their niche in sports broadcasting. Actually, it was during that time when those two words became inseparable. Joe was the eloquent, classically trained former amateur boxer who sprinkled Latin into his telecasts. When Joe died, PBA commissioner Jun Bernardino listed all the terms he had introduced into our sports broadcasting lexicon. It was three pages long. Pinggoy coined the term “cardiac game” for exciting matches, and was quoted by Time magazine. Quinito brought the passion for research, on the long sheets of paper filled with his scribblings. Andy Jao brought his incisive analysis to the game. Joaqui was the down-to-earth analyst with the dry humor. Ed was the grammatically perfect, modulated voice of reason. Sev was the younger entertainer who made everyone look good. Butch had a way with numbers, computing rankings, stats and percentages off the top of his head. None of them would have become a household name if not for Bobong. 

The succeeding generation included Ronnie Nathanielsz, who was no longer too polarizing for television, Chino Trinidad, Anthony Suntay, Barry Pascua, Noli Eala, Mon Liboro, Benjie Santiago and a platoon of young PBA coaches and former players, men and – trailblazing as Bobong was – a handful of women who have all became the faces and voices of the PBA on television and radio. When you stop to think about all those people who were given opportunities to learn on the job, find their voices and become great at it, all the more you see the magnitude of Bobong Velez’s hand behind the scenes. Many of those professionals have created networks, pioneered in organizing sports events, worked in government, and traded on their recognizability to become respected in whichever field they ended up in.

But Bobong’s legacy goes deeper than many people realize. More than half of the producers and writers who now lead the proud company of ABS-CBN Sports cut their teeth at Vintage Enterprises in the 1990’s. They have brought his tradition of preparedness and excellence to one of the country’s biggest sports broadcasting entities, influencing the Philippine broadcasts of the Olympic Games, Asian Games, Southeast Asian Games, UAAP, NCAA, Champion’s League, and hundreds of major international sporting events. Knowing this would have probably caused him to give us a knowing wink, as if to say “I told you so.”

A proud La Sallian, Bobong told me how he was a left-footed rarity when he played football for DLSU. He constantly reminded us of athletes who paved the way and provided stability for sports today. He always told me to remember the people who have gone before, a lesson I never outgrew. We would meet before and often after every broadcast, and he kept attention to every detail clarifying little things like the difference between a steal and interception, how we wore our ties. With all due respect to everyone who has followed, you don’t really see anyone doing that with the same dogged persistence that he did. He never compromised his belief in getting better, and it showed. To this day, some people still think I cover the PBA, even 25 years after the fact. I can only attribute that to Bobong Velez’s guidance.

We will never be able to write the history of the PBA or Philippine pro boxing without Bobong Velez. His hand is still there, guiding all of us whom he trained and molded. Of those luminaries I have had the honor of working shoulder to shoulder with, Joe Cantada, Pinggoy Pengson, Romy Kintanar and Ronnie Nathanielsz have passed on. Looks like Boss Bobong will have one top-notch broadcast team with which to please the Almighty.