UST, Ayo still liable for heavy sanctions

UST Coach Aldin Ayo. INQUIRER PHOTO/ Sherwin Vardeleon

University of Santo Tomas (UST) still stands to be sanctioned heavily for the Sorsogon “bubble” where its Growling Tigers basketball squad practiced for more than two months in the time of the coronavirus pande­mic—even after accepting the resignation of its head coach, Aldin Ayo, the man who ran that controversial training program.

And even after Ayo had quit his post officially last Friday, a very reliable Inquirer source on Sunday said that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) will still sanction the champion collegiate coach with a possible multiyear suspension, which would start when and where he takes on a new coaching assignment.

Fr. Jannel Abogado, who was head of UST’s physical education department at the time the Tigers were in Ayo’s hometown of Capuy in Sorsogon training, will also be held accountable especially after copies of waivers signed by parents of the players surfaced online during the height of the controversy. Those waivers were addressed to Abogado.

Investigation into the Sorsogon bubble has been going on for weeks now, with UST already forwarding results of its internal probe to the UAAP board, which, in turn, had turned over the same to the league’s Board of Trustees made up of the school owners and those tasked in running them.

The source, who spoke on condition that he is not identified, said that the IATF is just awaiting the official decision of the UAAP on how it will treat the UST case before it comes up with a decision of its own.

And should the UAAP penalize UST, the source said that the school and Ayo, still won’t be spared from sanctions coming from the government.

The IATF will get a recommendation for a sanction from the joint administrative order group, which is made up of the Philippine Sports Commission, the Games and Amusements Board and the Department of Health, the same body which gave the green light to some professional sports to restart, but not to amateur teams.

Santo Tomas has lost practically its entire collegiate cage program as an after effect of that bubble, with skipper CJ Cansino the first to leave. INQ