UP eyes other options after commissioner nixes appeal

UAAP Season 82 basketball commissioner Jensen Ilagan on Friday stood firm on his decision to hand an additional two-game ban on top of the automatic one-game suspension slapped on University of the Philippines coach Bo Perasol, forcing the Maroons to scrounge for other options to reverse the decision.

“Officiating may not be perfect, but it cannot justify outbursts like what he did. As head coach, he should know that he is a role model, and in the UAAP where character-building is of paramount importance, Mr. Perasol should have been aware of that,” Ilagan said in a statement. “Mr. Perasol did not only disrespect the officials that time but the UAAP as well.”

UP’s legal team, led by lawyer Patricia Galang, said the school would now elevate its appeal to the UAAP board of trustees to remedy a decision she called “terribly misguided and based on a poor understanding of the tournament rules, a faulty appreciation of the facts and a blatant disregard for precedent.”

“The commissioner is improvising to justify the legally unjustifiable,” Galang said. “In his first memo, he said that the two-game suspension was for continuous flagrant acts of aggression. Now, in an effort to justify each suspended game, he has gone back to the footage and tried to identify each of the purported acts of unsportsmanlike conduct.”