Marcial gets three-year extension as PBA chief

Willie Marcial just got a three-year extension as commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association. And from being an interim head during a moment of crisis in the league, Marcial now can become among the longest-tenured PBA bosses in history.

“We reappointed the commissioner for another three-year term. We were open and transparent to his performance,” said PBA Chair Ricky Vargas, who is with Marcial and the board in Italy for the league’s annual planning session.

“We talked to him. That’s the good thing about the board. The board decided to reappoint him for another three-year term.”Marcial, who started his PBA career as a statistician in 1983, was the league’s Media Bureau chief and special assistant to the commissioner in 2003 during Noli Eala’s term.

A divided board appointed him officer in charge on Jan. 1, 2018—a day after the resignation of then commissioner Chito Narvasa. Marcial, dubbed the “healing commissioner,” helped the league navigate through the fog of divisiveness and was eventually named commissioner on Jan. 25, 2018.

By the end of his second term, Marcial would be the third-longest serving commissioner of the PBA behind Leo Prieto (1975 to 1983) and Jun Bernardino (1994 to 2002).