AL PANLILIO, the Meralco board representative in the PBA and one of basketball godfather Manny V. Pangilinan’s trusted lieutenants, was elected as the new president of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas and will be responsible in charting the country’s international success from hereon.
Panlilio replaces Pangilinan at the helm and will continue what the business tycoon has started, and that is to keep pushing for the Philippines’ continued World Cup participation and its return to the Olympics in 2020.
“They (Pangilinan’s) are big shoes to fill, but the program is solid and that will push on,” Panlilio said after being anointed as Pangilinan’s successor and voted by a 25-man board of trustees that was elected also yesterday at Dusit Hotel in Makati.
Sen. Sonny Angara was voted chair, while former congressman Robbie Puno is the group’s new vice chair.
PBA chair Robert Non of San Miguel Beer, vice chair Eric Arejola of GlobalPort and commissioner Chito Narvasa were the other three representatives of the professional sector counting Panlilio.
Under Pangilinan’s watch of close to a decade, the SBP came up with the Gilas Pilipinas program and got back to playing in the World Cup in the 2014 edition in Seville, Spain.
The Philippines narrowly missed playing in the ongoing Rio de Janeiro Olympics after finishing second to China in the Asian Championship last year in Changsa, Hunan province.
“Thank you to all of you who have given me the trust and confidence all these years,” Pangilinan said.