On Pirates’ honor

The old Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) Pasig-Rizal Pirates set a high standard for basketball professionalism in the city. That team’s management looks forward to the current incarnation of Pasig in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) living up to that reputation.

“As a Pasig native, we took a lot of pride in how we ran our team,” says former congressman Toti Cariño, who ran the Pirates, one of the MBA’s consistent contenders from 1998 to 2000. “We were very well-coached by Joel and Koy Banal, and had a lot of great players.”

The Pirates paraded name players like Bong Ravena, Paul Alvarez, Gido Babilonia, Dorian Peña and Jonathan de Guzman, and were constantly among the top teams in the league, with a very vocal crowd at the Pasig Sports Complex. That’s why it saddened Cariño that the name Pirates was tarnished by the team’s original management in the MPBL. Horror stories of players’ salaries and league dues being unpaid circulated. Other negative stories about how the team was run also hurt the image of the name Cariño and company had built.

“We’re really looking forward to the MPBL taking a stronger stand against these practices,” Cariño added. “We put a lot into creating a good name for the Pirates that has stood to this day.”

Cariño, co-founder of Fil-Estate, has been hard at work with major developments in Puerto Princesa and El Nido in Palawan. Nearing completion, he says that the projects will become the new travel destinations of the future. 

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On June 20, the Thailand women’s Under-19 basketball team quietly left the Philippines after a week of hard training and scrimmages. The new squad’s fruitful weeklong trip was thanks to its new head coach,Eric Samson. In the last two years alone, Samson had coached the Philippine National Police to a championship and runner-up finish in the UNTV Cup, won a championship in the 2018 commercial league in the Maldives, and was part of the coaching staff of the Valenzuela franchise in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League. Samson had also coached the national men’s team of Vietnam. Thailand is hosting the FIBA Under-19 Women’s Basketball Cup in Bangkok from July 20 to 28.

The tall, outside-shooting team had daily skills training under Chris Gavina, and played against the women’s teams of FEU, CEU and the PNP, pulling some surprise wins along the way.  

“When we first started practicing, they were taking it easy with each other, because they were all friends,” Samson says. “I told them they had to develop their toughness. It finally came out in this trip.”

Initially, a former coach of the team and his players were undermining Samson’s authority, defying his instructions and plays. Samson quickly snuffed that little rebellion out.

“I got upset with him and his players,” Samson told The Star. “I reminded them that I was the head coach. If they wouldn’t follow, I would tell the federation to take me out of the team. They quickly shaped up.”

Thailand is grouped with Canada, Latvia and Mozambique in the Under-19 World Cup.