Southwestern juniors team withdraws from CESAFI after coach, 5 players banned for life

CEBU CITY, Philippines – The much awaited return of the Southwestern University (SWU) Baby Cobras in the juniors basketball competition of the 2015 Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) has been put on hold following the lifetime ban that was meted on its head coach and 5 of its players for tampering with birth certificates.

Banned for life from the CESAFI are Rey Lubguban, the Baby Cobras head coach, and players Elber dela Cerna Catinggan, Reynaldo Obarco Jr., Mark Anthony Quilab, Andy Jones Turno and Edwin Abo-abo.

With this development, SWU has decided to dissolve its high school basketball team and withdraw its participation in this year’s season which opens on Saturday, August 1 at the Cebu Coliseum.

The last time that the Baby Cobras played in the inter-school league was in 2000 when they won the title. It was also the last year that the league had the name of Cebu Amateur Athletic Association (CAAA) before it was changed the following year to CESAFI.

The school’s vice president for student life, Gilbert Magno penned a letter to CESAFI commissioner Felix Tuikinhoy, Jr. expressing their willingness to accept the screening committee’s decision.

“We would like to congratulate the Screening Committee’s diligence in upholding the sanctity of the rules governing the high school basketball tournament and the results of their findings regarding the eligibility of a number of the school’s players and the involvement of some of the coaching staff.”

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CESAFI rules state that players must not yet be 18 years of age by the start of the tournament to qualify for the juniors division. One player in question may have been as old as 24 years old, as Aznar said he’d have only one year of eligibility remaining had he enrolled in seniors competition. The cut-off age for college players is 25.

Days earlier, the CESAFI screening committee announced the disqualification of SWU’s 5 players after it was found out that the birth certificates authenticated by the National Statistics Office (NSO) that they have submitted were tampered.

Nine tampered birth certificates were submitted. In the investigation that ensued, 5 of the players did not deny that their birth certificates were doctored while the committee awaited copies of the 4 remaining players’ birth certificates.

Certificates tampered after NSO release

In a press conference called by SWU, athletic director Ryan Aznar showed a copy of the tampered birth certificates and the untampered ones which they also got from the NSO.

Aznar said that they did not question the authenticity of the birth certificates seeing that they have come from the NSO and submitted them to the CESAFI screening committee. It had seemed that the tampering was done after the documents were released by the NSO.

Aznar was joined by the school’s legal officer, Atty. Godwin Manginsay, who said they were shocked as anyone else by what the screening committee uncovered.

“If we had any inkling at all, we would not have bothered to submit those documents,” said Manginsay who pointed out that they did not even bother to submit the names of their collegiate players whom they know would never qualify because of their grades and number of units even if it left the defending champions with 9 players in the lineup and them being the defending champion.

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The school has conducted its own investigation and vowed to hand out the appropriate punishment.

“On behalf of Southwestern University, I would like to apologize to CESAFI and to the public for this incident. Rest assured, we will investigate this problem and we will act accordingly,” reads the statement issued by Dr. Chito B. Salazar, SWU’s chairman of the board.

“We will endeavor to clean up our athletics program and make sure that there are no more incidents of inappropriate behavior of unethical practices, falsification, extortion or corruption. For Phinma education, integrity and professionalism are core values,” Salazar further stated.

Phinma Corp. has taken over SWU’s management after completing the acquisition of a majority stake of the institution founded by the Aznar family.

Tall orders

According to Aznar, the players, who were as tall as 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-4, and who were supposed to be in college already judging from their untampered birth certificates, were scouted by Lubguban, a former Cobra and who was made head coach just last month following the recommendation of the team manager. The players were recruited from Cagayan de Oro, Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental.

With the guilty findings on the 5 players, Aznar said they did not wait for the other 4 players to be cleared because they are sure that the allegations against them would prove to be true as well.

Because they are left with just 6 players, Aznar said they decided to dissolve the team and forego their comeback.

Manginsay clarified that their basketball program will still continue though and they will use this season to build another team.

Their target would be next year but they will not force their participation if they cannot come up with a worthy and competitive team. – Rappler.com