Salud leaves PBA in good hands

MANY were surprised when PBA chief executive officer and lawyer Chito Salud handed in his resignation to the board last week.

It was the second time this year Salud was going through the same process of quitting the play-for-pay league. He had already resigned from his post as PBA commissioner, explaining that the daily grind had become so tiring and stressful.

You’ve got to give it to the guy. He watched every single game day in and day out, sometimes more than once.

The first time he tried to quit,  the board did not accept his resignation and last year’s chair Pato Gregorio eventually succeeded in convincing him to stay.

The league was eventually restructured, where there would be two major divisions—the office of the commissioner, now headed by Chito Narvasa, and the office of the CEO led by Salud.

Under this new setup, a big load  of work would be taken off Salud’s shoulders, and he’d be receiving just as much compensation.

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And so it came to pass that the house got divided, basically between two heads.

People were quick to surmise that bad blood had begun to develop between the commissioner and the CEO and they had to part ways. The sooner the better.

Well that’s what most people in the PBA community thought, but I never heard any of the two talk bad about the  other, or make snide remarks.

Just as he said in his   statement, the transition of power or work, or whatever you want to call it, has been accomplished and it was time to move on.

The second time around, the board did not hesitate to accept Salud’s resignation effective Dec. 31.

Salud told an associate he would be going back to law practice when he leaves the PBA.

He said he had  served the league for almost the same length his father Rudy has—5 years—and that was exactly his target.  Those were some of the PBA’s best years.

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HOOPVINE: The Filipino boxing community is positive that we will have a new WBO bantamweight champion by this weekend, thanks to two-time Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux who was stripped of his title due to inactivity … The fight between Nonito Donaire Jr. and Cesar Juarez will be held in Puerto Rico.