In UAAP Season 69 last year, the Green Archers were suspended after school officials admitted that the records of two students were tampered with to allow them admission into the university.

This time it’s game fixing again.

Paolo Orbeta, member of the sister-school DLS-College of Saint Benilde Blazers basketball team, was arrested on allegations of game fixing. Apparently, Orbeta, with several accomplices, are being accused by classmate Wilfred Uy of being in the process of defrauding him of millions of pesos.

It saddens me that members of the DLSU community is embroiled in yet another scandal; lessons should have been learned with the DLSU main campus’ experiences.

Despite this, however, I believe this is yet another opportunity to look into the supposedly amateur sports leagues, which is being manipulated by both alumna and probably even illegal-gambling mafia.

Animo Benilde! Animo La Salle!

I wouldn’t call Morales a complete loser however; at least he’s not a sore one. After the belt has been given to Pacquiao, El Terible approached him and gave him a congratulatory hug. Something that takes a lot of humility (and balls). Kudos to you, El Terible: that was a very honorable thing to do.

So who are the real losers? Here they are, in no given order:

• Ayala Center – I was there from 11 ’til 1 PM, and the place was, by Sunday afternoon standards, practically deserted. I mean, 3 people having lunch at the Yellow Cab at G1 when we couldn’t get a seat for at least 15 minutes on any other Sunday. McDonalds and Jollibee were both only half-filled.

• Bombo Radyo – 102.7 Star FM Bombo Radyo Philippines was almost a winner: ALL the shops that I entered in Ayala Center, whether catering to the A-B or C-D classes, were tuned in to them. Yes, even friggin’ Rustan’s. The problem is their broadcast of the Pacquiao fight was being commentated by Congressman Monico Fuentebella, who, aside from being a staunch supporter of Manny Pacquaio, knows nothing about boxing terms and couldn’t explain what was actually happening. He was also quite unobjective, and never gave credence to Morales’ moves.

• PGMA – Gloria Macapagal Arroyo once more rode on Pacquaio’s victory by making sure that her cellphone conversation with Pacquaio goes televised. That’s fine though: I’m sure nobody’s wiretapping her talk with Pacman. She’s still a loser though, for always riding on Pacman’s popularity.

• Solar Sports – For printing an ad that said their telecast of the Pacquaio-Morales fight would have no commercial breaks. You f_ing LIARS should go to hell!

• ABS-CBN – In as much as I root for Pacquiao in boxing, I hate it when Star Records makes people who shouldn’t sing sing. Pacman has an album through them. Great. Can we get rid of it the soonest possible time so that Pacman won’t be able to embarass himself, especially now that he had a great victory?

Congratulations, Manny Pacquiao!

And speaking of Jollibee…

I found a very interesting link of an American girl trying it out in California, here.

As for dieting:

While going on weight loss diet some people are complete winners and some are complete losers. It’s not because they can’t do a diet; it’s because they don’t do proper diet which is meant for them according to their blood group, weight and height. Like soup diet is not meant for every one; this diet is good for extremely fat people who want to lose lots of weight. Similarly grapefruit diet is good for bulky people who want to lose weight slowly and steadily.

This was published in a Statement of De La Salle University – Manila on the Eligibility of Two Basketball Players released this afternoon, posted in Pinoyexchange by Fried Green Tomato, (a PExer whom I know personally and I will vouch for the authenticity of his posts as well). I’m sure this statement will be published or mentioned in the next few days in major newspapers.

Although it is unclear as to who identified these two people as being involved, it should be noted that the basis of the internal committee designated to investigate the matter are testimonies from the team staff and the players themselves. Both Salgado and Lacson deny the allegations, however.

Furthermore,

[DLSU rejects] in the strongest possible terms insinuations that the University purposely concealed the DepEd initial letter of verification received on August 18, 2005. We find these allegations malicious and unworthy of further comment.

As do I.

The De La Salle University has submitted this statement as well as its findings to the UAAP board, which I hope would quickly act upon the matter, hopefully with a deeper and more thorough investigation.

Related posts:
Some good comes out of the La Salle scandal

I’m sure you’re all well aware of the newer UAAP edition, where two of La Salle’s UAAP men’s basketball team players were found to be ineligible to enter the university owing to questionable papers from the Department of Education.

The good news, perhaps, is that the Department of Education confirmed that only 2 Archers have false documents. So it’s only Mark Benitez and Tim Gatchalian.

The bad news is that it’s as real as it gets.

I agree with the sentiments of several people, Lasallian and non-Lasallian alike, that this was a serious case of negligence in La Salle’s part. It took three years to find the skeleton in the proverbial closet? And how many other players were able to slip through before?

And I agree that heads must roll regarding the issue. The first head that I personally would want to chop would be that of Manny Salgado. In fact, aside from that punch on Arwind Santos, some of my friends actually think that it was Salgado who facilitated the falsification of both Benitez’s and Gatchalian’s papers.

On the other hand, I expect several good things to come out of this fiasco.

I’m hoping that this will make the already strict admission policies of La Salle even more stringent. If they’d stop accepting PEPTCR documents and require students to actually finish highschool, even if it’s only from correspondence school, then cases like these would be more easily prevented.

I think it will also hopefully make the school administrators of the seven other UAAP schools examine their own ranks. Hopefully, it won’t be limited to basketball.

Finally, I also believe that this issue will encourage the universities to breed their own players and not rely on external recruitments that are sometimes conducted by unscrupulous alumni.

Right now, however, there’s apparently one good thing that already came out of this issue: Mark Benitez has vowed to return to highschool. If this vow is sincere, even if just for Benitez’s own sake, I think this scandal was worth going through with.

Animo La Salle!