College basketball in foul trouble
Last week the National Bureau of Investigation arrested the star guard of the College of Saint Benilde basketball team on allegations that he fixed at least one game he played. The NBI said it acted on a complaint filed against the player, Paolo Orbeta, by his classmate who bet on the game after Orbeta guaranteed he would win. When the classmate didn’t pay up, the player and some of his companions allegedly threatened him with bodily harm.Saint Benilde promptly announced it was suspending Orbeta while the case is being investigated. The NCAA, the league to which Saint Benilde belongs, was equally quick to pronounce the incident as an isolated one. “The NCAA has been very vigilant in terms of monitoring any forms of illegal gambling as evidenced by working closely with NBI since the 81st season. This season [the 83rd] has been very quiet and an incident like this is purely an isolated case allegedly involving an individual,” one top official of the league said.
The official may be whistled for jumping the gun. It is too early to conclude that the Orbeta case is a rare exception. Or if Orbeta was fixing games on his own. The NBI has long had its eye on a highly organized syndicate running high-stakes, illegal sports betting. It just could not get hold of hard evidence to bust the group.
Sports has always been a rich hunting ground for criminal syndicates. Even professional leagues are not immune. A referee of the National Basketball Association is under federal investigation over suspicions that he had bet on games he officiated and agreed to influence the winning margins. The NBA commissioner, David Stern, described the referee as a “top-tier official” and intimated that he may have links with the Mafia.
In the early 1970s, several marquee players of Crispa, one of the country’s long-reigning basketball dynasties, were implicated in game-fixing and were invited for questioning by the military. No charges were filed, but the incident cast the players under a heavy cloud of suspicion.
As the shadow of last week’s scandal spread, the Games and Amusements Board chairman, Eric Buhain, acknowledged that game-fixing and illegal gambling did bedevil the Philippine Basketball Association in the past, but added that the pro league has licked the problem. “We didn’t discount the possibility that game-fixing and illegal gambling exist in professional sports, but management control and vigilance in informing the players, officials and even the top-level executives made things easier for the GAB to control or even eradicate the problem,” Buhain said.
We’re glad Buhain did not invoke the “isolated case” disclaimer. We understand the sports officials’ eagerness to put the controversy behind them. But they should not readily sweep the issue under the rug. Instead they should allow the NBI to dig deeper into the case and come up with its findings.
