Grand party for a PBA workhorse

Considering the bright, new horizon that lies ahead for him, Sta. Lucia’s PBA governor Buddy Encarnado still had many things to wish for when he was presented his birthday cake on Monday night.

Buddy turned senior that day and the celebration was grander than usual, the guest list longer than it had been in the last few years.

Buddy’s close friends, business and basketball associates and family were all there at the Acropolis clubhouse in Libis, Quezon City, to toast the man.

With a tinge of nostalgia, I realized that I had been in practically all of Buddy’s well-attended birthday parties in the last 20 years.

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The festivities reached its climax when the cake with one huge brightly lit candle was brought in by one of his best friends from Pasig.

Everybody sang the Birthday Song, the highest decibels possibly coming from the media group, joined by Ginebra governors past and present, Jun Cabalan and Robert Non.

The additional decibels came mostly from Tito Obet Non, who earlier had the chance to give his vocal chords some stretching exercises.

Even I couldn’t believe that the very reserved and usually shy (or so I thought) San Miguel executive would have the nerve to climb up the stage to belt out two beautiful Tagalog love songs.

Tito Obet’s songs were both hypnotic and enchanting. As he crooned “Ipagpatawad Mo,” I was transfixed and transported several years back in time, when romance was still in the air.

In response to the guests’ clamor, he sang a second song, the Apo Hiking Society’s very popular “Mahirap Talagang Magmahal ng Syota ng Iba,” and that’s where I was jolted back to reality.

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So what was Buddy’s wish? I couldn’t resist the temptation to pry into his innermost thoughts.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Buddy said. “I just requested for an extension, so I could continue working and helping people who need help.”

A member of the committee tasked to form the PBA Developmental League (PBADL), Buddy may be taking on new challenges, a new direction, next season. He has been offered the PBADL commissionership and there is a clamor for him to oversee the PBA’s technical operations on a concurrent basis.

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PBA chair Rene Pardo, together with Purefoods-San Miguel president Butch Alejo, arrived at the party a bit late and was immediately escorted to the table occupied by PBA commissioner Sonny Barrios and his staff—deputy commissioner Chito Salud, legal counsel Melvin Mendoza, media bureau chief Willie Marcial and operations-technical director Rickie Santos.

Mang Pards said some people thought he was also chair of the “Everybody Hates D. Monyo” club because people in basketball circles saw photos of him with the media on Facebook the night the club was formed.

For the information of all, the club has not elected a set of officers yet. Most likely to hold important positions are a PBA coach, a PBA official, a scribe, a very popular businessman-sportsman and a team owner. The polls is expected to be a hotly contested one, since several important people are interested in holding key slots.

The club’s interim secretary-media bureau reported that he has received calls from various cage groups stationed in Tacloban, Zamboanga, Bacolod and Davao, lauding the formation of the club and seeking membership.

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Yesterday, I got a call from a scribe on assignment in Southeast Asia.

He corrected me. The club, he said, was not conceptualized at a Chinese restaurant on West Avenue, but inside a hotel room in Tianjin, China, in August last year, during the Fiba Asia Championship for men.

“We were drinking with some guests inside the hotel room where the media group was booked, remember?”