Double trouble

CEBU, Philippines – For consistency and uniformity in applying the rules and regulations of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc., the league through its commissioner Felix 'Boy' O. Tiukinhoy, Jr. has forfeited the win games of the University of San Jose-Recoletos Jaguars and the Cebu Eastern College Dragons on different grounds.

The CESAFI has defaulted the 85-68 victory of USJ-R against the University of Cebu Webmasters last August 1 for non-submission of the ECG medical certificates of its players.

Failure to comply with the requirement on time was the very same reason why Tiukinhoy decided to cancel and forfeit the games of the Cebu Institute of Technology-University against the University of the Visayas in both high school and college divisions the following day.

"This decision of the Commissioner was discussed last Monday morning, August 3, 2015, with Fr. Christopher C. Maspara, OAR, President of USJ-R. After our discussion he said, if this decision is good for the CESAFI League and will bring integrity to it, he will abide by the decision," said Tiukinhoy.

"The decision was made in all good faith and for consistency in the application of our rules in order to protect and uphold the intergrity of our games and the CESAFI as an organization," he added.

In the juniors division, Tiukinhoy has also forfeited the won game of CEC against the University of Southern Philippines Foundation Baby Panthers on technicalities.

Tiukinhoy said the school officials of CEC has informed him that they discovered and found out upon their investigation that their player, Mark James Roa, to be overaged as his true date of birth is November 15, 1995 as against his submitted NSO of November 15, 1997.

For tampering with his official record, Roa is banned for life in all CESAFI events.

Roa's case somewhat gave a flashback on the record tampering fiasco that rocked and eventually led to the disbandment of the supposedly comebacking Southwestern University high school team.

Before the start of the season, the CESAFI screening committee led by lawyer Marvin Pañares, Dr. Danny Villadolid and deputy commissioner Danny Duran found out that nine of SWU's 15-man lineup in the secondary division have submitted tampered NSO records.

Upon thorough investigation, five of the players admitted their true date of birth as shown in original NSO and pointed to coach Rey Lubguban, a former SWU Cobra during his collegiate days, as the one who instructed them to tell the falsified date. The five are Elber de la Cerna Catinggan, Reynaldo Obarco, Mark Anthony Quilab, Andi Jones Turno, and Edwin Abo-abo.

The oldest of them is Quilab, who is already 25 years old. His true date of birth is August 28, 1990 and not August 28, 1998 as shown in his submitted NSO.

As a result, the five players as well as coach Lubguban were banned for life from playing in the CESAFI. They were also stripped by SWU of their athletic scholarships and sent back home to Cagayan de Oro.