PH BASKETBALL CONTROVERSY: WE NEED A PRESIDENT LIKE MAGSAYSAY TO RESOLVE ISSUE
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 31 Aug 2015
Had the late former President Ramon Magsaysay, whose 108th birth anniversary the country commemorated Monday, Aug. 31, alive today, he could have intervened in the current controversy involving players not willing to play for the national team competing in the Olympic qualifying FIBA-Asia championship later this month.
As he did in 1954 when he interceded in resolving the fiasco involving Philippine team skipper Lauro "The Fox" Mumar, and saving the country's participation in the World Basketball Championship held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where the Filipino dribblers ended up third, the best ever by any Asian nation in the International Basketball Federation history.
Mumar missed the Nationals' flight to the United States when he failed to show up at the Manila International Airport. The Filipinos were to play a series of tune up games before proceeding to Rio. The team captain, thus, failed to lead his teammates in all the six games against selected American squads.
That misdemeanor almost cost Mumar's career as a player as the then sports ruling body Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation (PAAF) immediately banned him for participating in all sports for life for "failing to honor an international commitment and conduct unbecoming of an athlete of national stature."
The controversy, as expected, became a national issue.
Lauro Mumar.
The 1954 Philippine basketball team.
Photos from the files of Eddie Alinea.
The late sportswriter Eddie Ticzon of the Roces family owned MANILA TIMES wrote a story on the "missing Fox" whose only fault, Ticzon reported, "was his having been born poor, unlike the other members of the basketball aristocracy."
The PAAF faux pas caught the attention of President Magsaysay, known as the "champion of the masses," who took interest on the case of Mumar.
Both Houses of Congress, led by then congressman Arsenio Lacson, who was to become Mayor of Manila, along with Sen. Lorenzo Tanada, a former national football player, conducted an investigation and denounced "the oppression of the oppressed (Mumar)" by the high lords of basketball.
President Magsaysay, for his part, summoned Mumar to Malacanang where the suspended athlete told him: "Ako po ay mahirap lamang. The last I joined the national team to the London Olympics in 1948, all I had in my pocket was $2. Right now, I have not even paid my apartment rent."
Mumar said he was hoping his parents in Bohol would send him little money, but they were too hard up, they failed to raise his needed funding.
"I told basketball officials that I'd just follow the team a soon as the money arrives but nobody simply cared to listen," Mumar explained. "They suspended me without due process."
Magsaysay took over from there. He called a public hearing held at the Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel and, as a result, the PAAF reversed its decision and lifted Mumar's lifetime suspension.
Basketball fans conducted a fund raising campaign to raise money for Mumar to be able to join his teammates, who by that time had won just three of their six-game preparation program in the U.S.
Mumar could only join though in the Nationals' final tune-up game in Florida where they battled fellow-World Championship-bound Cuba in a 47-45 close but ego-boosting encounter.
Cuban basketball high priests took the loss to a crew of little-known "Brown Dolls" as a catastrophe they decided to forgo participation in the World Championship.
Mumar, meanwhile, whose playing career nearly ended due to a sorry case of miscommunication, was a resurrection personified.
He went on to preside over the Philippine campaign that was rewarded with a bronze medal, winning seven of its assignment, six in the championship round, and losing only to the eventual champion U.S. and Brazil (twice)
Teammate Carlos Loyzaga was named member of the World Mythical Selection as an added highlight in the country's most successful campaign in the World Championship.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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