23 March 2016

Is The PBA Stifling the Truth?

Robert Non and Chito Narvasa
Spin.ph reporter Dodo Catacutan has a very interesting piece last 22 March and it is still connected to the Philippine Basketball Association's (PBA) unpopular move to fire and hire marketing director Rhose Montreal after she was caught falsifying her school records.

According to Catacutan, many employees have been left 'demoralized' as league officials tapped the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe office leaks which it blamed for the controversy.

It will be recalled that another Spin.ph reporter, Snow Badua, exposed on social media spurious school documents allegedly submitted by Montreal when she applied for the marketing head position.

Confronted with the issue, Montreal tendered her resignation which the board accepted in a special meeting, only to re-hire her for 'humanitarian reasons, exemplary performance' last 7 March.

Montreal was rehired based on 10 affirmative votes, one negative and one abstention. Alaska Milk voted against while PBA newbie Phoenix Petroleum abstained.

Now that the issue has died down a bit, it appears that those who were responsible for trying to keep everything hush-hush wanted to get back at the employees who provided the controversial, albeit important, piece of information to the media. They are now training their guns on those who wanted to clean the league and weed out the cheaters.

According to the source of Catacutan, employees of the PBA Commissioner's Office are being ordered to go in batches to the NBI office as part of the investigation.

A couple of employees have already gone to the NBI office in Manila where they were made to sign documents expressing their willingness to undergo lie-detector tests, the source added.

Another source claimed phones and phone records of some employees are also being examined in the probe which one insider bared was ordered not by Commissioner Chito Narvasa but by the league board.

It is obvious that the PBA Board has erred in fulfilling their mission for their dwindling fans when they failed to recognized who should be investigated first.

The NBI should have been asked to investigate if there were any on-going underhanded deals between sister teams that compromises public interest. Authorities should have also looked at the alleged infidelity of PBA officials and get the sworn statements of Abby Poblador. How about investigating the alleged game-fixing allegations thrown at the referees?

The league should get their priority straight and avoid nitpicking on issues that cast doubt on the integrity of the PBA.

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