‘PLAN B’ for PBA means playing in Batangas

The Philippine Basketball Association’s (PBA) “Plan B,” it turns out, is playing in Batangas province.

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial told the Inquirer on Friday that the league has reached out to the Department of Health, seeking clearance to move its games to Lipa City in anticipation of Metro Manila’s return to Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).

“We wrote an official letter to the Health Department this morning. So we’re now just waiting for a response,” the league chief said.

In Lipa City, the league will make use of the closed-circuit setup—the same scheme it used when it held successful scrimmages last May.

Marcial said Batangas province was targeted for its abundance of wooden courts, something the league also made use of when contact sports training was still prohibited in the capital.

National Capital Region will be placed under ECQ from Aug. 6 through 20 as a preemptive measure against the much more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.

Should the PBA encounter hitches in its request, Marcial said he will have no choice but to put the games on hold.

“We’ll have to take a break if it comes to that,” he said.

Contact sports have been allowed only under extraordinary circumstances. The PBA was able to salvage what’s left of its 2020 season last year by staging its games within a bio-secure environment now referred to as a “bubble.”

Though successful, it cost Asia’s pioneering professional league an estimated P65 million.