MANILA, Philippines – Former JRU basketball player John Amores has personally apologized to the CSB Blazers in an on-campus meeting on Saturday, November 19 – nearly two weeks after his punching spree that connected with four players and injured two.

Despite now being expelled from the Heavy Bombers athletics program, the 23-year-old has nonetheless started to make amends by meeting the players he assaulted, most notably Jimboy Pasturan and Taine Davis – who have filed physical injury complaints at San Juan City.

“We spoke on Thursday and I invited him to practice if he wanted to apologize and he did. We’re happy that he did that, it takes a lot of humility for him to accept his mistakes and to come up in front of the whole team to just say sorry. It’s not easy,” Tiu said.

“The parents of Jimboy Pasturan turned out to be there also, so at least even though there are still hard feelings from them, at least John has apologized. It’s a step towards the right direction for him, he said he wants to have a fresh start. For us, we told him that we will try to help him in anyway that we can.”

Amores is currently facing three separate complaints from Pasturan, Davis, and UP recruit Mark Belmonte, the latter of whom he first punched in a separate preseason game back in July.

“I believe our case is still ongoing as of now,” Tiu continued. “Nice thing about John, he’s accepting whatever consequences. He didn’t really ask or beg Jimboy [and Taine] to throw away the case, and I said, that’s really up to the families and the players.”

“It’s really easy for us to say to the team to drop that case but we weren’t really the ones who got hurt like them so we leave it up to the families, and we’ll support their decision. John understands and we respect him for that.”

As CSB moves forward on the court with its historic Final Four berth, Tiu is intent on putting this whole fracas in the backseat and fully focus on the Blazers’ NCAA title hunt.

“We wish [Amores] the best. We hope that one day he can revive his career somehow and I hope another team gives him a chance,” Tiu said. “Hopefully, he learns from this and becomes a better person, and we’re very happy that at least he initiated reaching out to us. It says a lot about the person.”

“For us, we’ve already put that [incident] in the past. We’re just focused on our next games.” – Rappler.com