Dayrit offers to mediate on BAP row

Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit has been burning the lines the last couple of days trying to convince the leaders of the two warring factions at the Basketball Association of the Philippines to sit down, talk and settle their differences once and for all.

Dayrit, neck-deep in the six-month-old leadership dispute within the basketball body, is confident that Gonzalo "Lito" Puyat and Quintellano "Tiny" Literal, both claiming to be the rightful BAP president, will heed his call "in the spirit of true friendship and sportsmanship, and for the good of Philippine basketball."

Dayrit said the Kuala Lumpur Southeast Asian Games barely three months away is enough reason for the BAP row to come to an end. The Philippines is also set to compete in the Asian Basketball Confederation Men’s Championship next month in Shanghai, China, and the continuing drama within the BAP isn’t helping the country’s chances any.

"Knowing that Mr. Puyat and Mr. Literal are in nature genuine sports leaders, I’m sure they will both agree to open the lines of communication, especially now that the SEA Games is just around the corner," said Dayrit, one of the respondents in a court case filed by the group of Literal.

Dayrit, who recognizes Puyat as the duly-elected BAP president following his group’s elections last June 7, said he talked with Literal last Thursday and was under the impression that the former BAP vice president for Mindanao "is willing to discuss" matters with his chief rival.

The POC president added that he still has to receive word from Puyat regarding the talks although the two-time president of the FIBA had said he is open to such and that it was the other group which has placed the obstacles by resorting to court cases.

Literal and his group consider Puyat’s election last June 7 as "illegal" and said they will hold their own on Wednesday in compliance with a court order issued by Judge Artemio Tipon of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46. The court-sanctioned elections are set at the library of the MRTC.

If ever Puyat and Literal would agree to talk, this should come before Wednesday’s elections so as not to put the POC under threat of suspension from the International Olympic Committee on the ground of government intervention.