San Miguel Beermen face CESAFI All-Stars tonight

CEBU, Philippines - After all the waiting, Cebuano hardcourt icon Dondon Hontiveros will once again treat his fans here to an exciting show of hoop skills together as he and the rest of the San Miguel Beermen will play in back-to-back games here starting with the battle with the CESAFI All-Stars at the Cebu Coliseum this 7 p.m.

Although this is only an exhibition match, Hontiveros, who met the press at Vanille in Ayala Center Cebu said that the Cebuano fans can expect a good showing from them as he and the Beermen would try to impress their new coach, Ato Agustin and the rest of the new coaching staff.

“With coach Ato, we are pushed to do all our best. In our practices so far, we are always told to go hard. Coach Ato is the kind of coach who gives due credits to players who really work hard and not only because of ‘star-factor.’

“If we don’t perform well, we’d be placed in the bench and have somebody take our place,” Hontiveros said.

Joining Hontiveros here are Paul Artadi, whom they acquired from B-Meg Derby Ace Llamados in exchange for Jonas Villanueva along with Danny Seigle, Danny Ildefonso, Dorian Peña, Arwind Santos, Denok Miranda and Olsen Racela.

The CESAFI All-Stars, for their part, will have the likes of 6’9” beanpole Junemar Fajardo of he UC Webmasters, UV’s Harold Cincoflores, Ralf Olivares, Jerome Silva, Rene Jun Saycon, Adrian Lao, Phil Mercader and Eman Calo, UC’s Edward Pao, Evan Diango and Rene Pacquiao of SWU, Michael Cantonao and Sam Hermosa of USC and Kurt Amores of USJR.

“I remember, in our last exhibition here, there was Slaughter (Greg) and a bunch of other potential players. My teammates recognize the local talents as well and we wish them well. We are looking forward to seeing Fajardo and the rest play tomorrow (tonight),” Hontiveros added.

Aside from the SMB-CESAFI All-Stars battle is the staging of the CESAFI hiphop dance competition.

After the battle against the CESAFI All-Stars, the Beermen are also set to face the Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) selection at 7 pm tomorrow at the Mandaue City Cultural and Sports Complex.

Although the event is in conflict with the M.Lhuillier-Kwarta Padala Cebu Niños battle against the Alaska Aces at the USC gym, organizers are positive that they will still be able to gather a good number of crowd since the featured teams have their own followers.

In line with this event, Hontiveros clarified that the beneficiary of this event are the CESAFI, Community Scouts and the Rotary Club of Cebu-South and not his own foundation as earlier reported.

Hontiveros said, he is still processing the documents for his foundation and still needs to raise the needed P1 million seed money required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

For the past five years, Hontiveros has been actively involved in staging such charity basketball games as his own way of returning to fans all the blessings he received at the same time inspiring young players to emulate his actions to help the needy ones in the future.

Such generosity earned him the prestigious ORLACSAN award from the Sportswriters Association of Cebu (SAC) in 2007. (THE FREEMAN)