OIC Marcial reaffirms PBA’s commitment to Gilas program

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net

PBA officer-in-charge Willie Marcial hinted at the possibility of having more than two representatives per team in Gilas Pilipinas  as the league continues its support for the national tea program.

“The PBA is 100-percent in support of Gilas. You’ll never know, they may propose to remove the limits on the players  who can play for the national team. That’s possible,”  said Marcial on Monday as he attended Gilas’ weekly practice.

Under the current setup forged back in 2016, all 12 PBA teams are required to lend at least two players, a veteran and a member of the cadet pool which they drafted back in the 2016 PBA Rookie Draft, which will comprise coach Chot Reyes’ Gilas roster.

So far, only three teams have exceeded that two-per-team cap and have willingly allowed their players to join the national team, namely TNT (Jayson Castro, Troy Rosario, and Roger Pogoy), NLEX (Kevin Alas, Kiefer Ravena, and Fonzo Gotladera), and Rain or Shine (Gabe Norwood, Raymond Almazan, and Mike Tolomia).

Marcial assured that the PBA will always be behind Gilas Pilipinas when coming up with the best possible Philippine team to compete in the international stage.

“We are and we’ve always been all-out in our support,” he said. “I told them that I’m not here as a visitor because we’ve been partners ever since.”

The affable executive said that he will try his best to be in attendance for the weekly sessions.

“I will try to be here every Monday as long as I don’t have a meeting to attend to. If you’ll see, we’re all happy here like friends. That’s how the PBA is to Gilas,” he said.