Ming defends decision to sack erring badminton players

"We don’t care if you’re No. 1 or No. 2. If you don’t have discipline, you have no room in the national team."

This was the strong warning issued by Philippine Badminton Association president Amelita "Ming" Ramos yesterday as she defended the PBA decision to sack three players from the national team for lack of discipline.

Mrs. Ramos, the former First Lady and a former national player, was referring to Owen Lopez, Ian Frias and Jaime Junio who were recently dropped from the RP team by the PBA board which includes Gen. Eduardo Aglipay, the association’s vice president.

Mrs. Ramos said Lopez, Frias and Junio have no one else to blame but themselves. She stressed that the decision sacking them was made by the board after a series of deliberations, inquiries and consultations with head coach Butch Oreta and his assistant Melvin Llanes.

Lopez came up with a press statement the other day, slamming the PBA for "lack of policy" in selecting and dropping national players. He also accused PBA officials of "overstaying" and not calling for an election that was supposed to be held last month.

Oreta, 56, who played for the national team from 1965 until 1985, said it was quite understandable for these players to come up with wild accusations after being given the pink slip.

Oreta said he has papers to show that Lopez was remiss in his responsibilities as a national player, and that at one point, the latter was absent in practice a total of 19 days in just a single month.

Frias and Junio, the coach added, have also displayed lack of discipline while they were with the national team and staying at the athletes’ quarters at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

Oreta said Junio even tried to sabotage the performance of his fellow RP players during the Hong Kong Badminton Open in November last year.

Oreta said one morning during their stay in a Hong Kong hotel, RP players Kennevic and Kenny Asuncion, Ian Piencenaves and Paula Obaniana complained that they were not able to get enough sleep because of the pranksters who kept pressing their door buzzers in the middle of the night.

"Imagine, they were scheduled to play at 8 a.m. and there was someone pressing their door buzzers until 4 in the morning. Kapag lumalabas naman sila there was no one outside. And their phones kept on ringing, too. Ayaw sila patulugin," said Oreta.

Later that day, Oreta said he went to the hotel’s security office to report the matter. A review of the surveillance cameras in their hotel floor clearly showed Junio pressing on the door buzzers then running back to his own room.

"He was doing this from 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. And when I confronted him about the surveillance cameras, he couldn’t say a word. Guilty," said Oreta.