The old man and the POC

LOCAL baseball’s national sports association—hermitically sealed by the man who has controlled it for 27 years—was in the news last week.

The Philippine Amateur Baseball Association (Paba) hit the headlines for displaying the drive to stay afloat in the swiftly churning waters of sports.

Paba, headed by 78-year-old Hector Navasero has unlocked its doors for a merger with the Amateur Softball Association of the Philippines (Asaphil).

Navasero said the fusion is as good as done and in step with that of the International Baseball Federation and the International Softball Federation. The two IFs combined recently while seeking the International Olympic Committee’s nod to return their sports to the Olympics. Baseball and softball were stricken off the Games calendar in 2008.

Danny Francisco, Asaphil secretary general, said Navasero’s continuing overture is sweet music to softball’s NSA. “The merger will be a good and positive change,” he said.

Like Navasero, Francisco is short on the mechanics of the merger. He says baseball and softball can co-exist with a separate set of officers, just like their international federations. These NSAs, added Francisco, would be able to thresh out differences while their union is consummated.

Hold the cigars, says Philippine Olympic Committee first vice president and official spokesman Joey Romasanta.

“The merger may be viewed as a new NSA that could be required to present a new constitution that conforms with IOC requirements and addresses the concern of both sports,” according to Romasanta.

Romasanta said the rocky marriage of the Canoe-Kayak and Dragon Boat NSAs a few years back remains a recurring nightmare for the POC.

To be able to include their sport as a paddling event in the Olympics, the dragon boat NSA merged with its canoe-kayak counterpart sanctioned by the IOC, only to go on its own recalcitrant ways.

Navasero is a thorn on the side of the POC which agonizes over the weakening of the country’s once-dominant sport under his long watch.

To Navasero, who’s about the same age as POC president Jose Cojuangco Jr., the feeling is mutual. The POC’s a pain, he says, since it abhors sending a baseball team to the Southeast Asian Games in Burma (Myanmar) this December.

Navasero’s bid for baseball is not supported by a team record, says Romasanta. “Does he even have a team?”

Of course he does, Navasero insists in a phone interview. It is a squad whose members, he said, have stuck with him for the last 20 years. So is it a team of mainstays similar to the late Fernando Poe Jr.’s stable of character actors? I asked.

Not really, he replied, explaining that he has replaced half of the team with young collegiate players. At that point, his diatribe against the POC became unprintable and our conversation bordered on the bizarre.

Navasero has lorded over Paba since 1986 with his own version of the Iglesia ni Cristo vote. He has fortified an alliance, an unholy one, says a critic, with Emmanuel Angeles, the long-time chair of the Private Schools Athletic Association (Prisaa).

By a quirk in the Paba voting process, the Prisaa gets 14 or 17 votes in every Paba election, compared to one each for the more prominent Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), notes an observer.

“Mahusay na tao yang si Angeles” (Angeles is a bright man),” Navasero gloated.