Point-shaving scam isolated case – NCAA

The NCAA yesterday said the point-shaving scandal involving St. Benilde star player Paolo Orbeta was an isolated case and maintained that the league has been serious in its fight against any form of illegal gambling the last three years.

“The NCAA has been very vigilant in terms of monitoring any form of illegal gambling as evidenced by (our)  working closely with the NBI since the 81st season,” said Management Committee chair Paul Supan of Jose Rizal in an emergency press conference at The Arena in San Juan City.

“This season has been very quiet and an incident like this is purely an isolated case allegedly involving an individual. Pending the outcome of the investigation, CSB has suspended Mr. Orbeta. Therefore, NCAA is suspending Mr. Orbeta from playing indefinitely,” he added.

“We’ve checked our records and we found out that out of the several suspects charged by the NBI, only Paolo Orbeta is a student of St. Benilde, which means the whole team is not involved,” said St. Benilde board representative Henry Atayde.

Even the complainant, Wilfredo Uy, is not a St. Benilde  student, according to Atayde.

The St. Benilde official, however, said the Orbeta case should be an eye-opener for everyone.

“It’s not just a problem of the institution and the league, it’s a social problem as a whole,” he said. “It showed that the problem of illegal gambling is there, it’s an eye-opener for all of us.”

Supan said they will be more vigilant now in policing their ranks to prevent any illegal activity like “game fixing” and/or “point-shaving” from happening again in the league.

“We’ll not tolerate such act, we’ll not condone gambling in this league,” he said. “That means member schools must police their own ranks all the more.”

Although St. Benilde is willing to provide legal help, Atayde said Orbeta could be expelled if proven guilty.

“We’ll offer legal help if his (Orbeta) family wants to,” said Atayde. “But I doubt if the school will allow that because under our handbook, you’re not suppose to gamble. If a student is going to be expelled, it has to go through a process, through the review board,” he added.

Orbeta also faces the possibility of a lifetime ban.

“It’s a possibility, but first, you have to prove that the person is guilty,” said Supan.

Orbeta along with several others were caught by NBI agents in an entrapment Wednesday.

Atayde noted that the group was charged by the NBI with illegal gambling, coercion, robbery with threat and extortion, but not game-fixing.

“If you would notice, there is no law against game-fixing, only illegal gambling,” said Atayde.

Both the league and St. Benilde are conducting their own investigation on the matter.

“But we’ll still cooperate with the NBI, they’re welcome to assign operatives here just what we’ve allowed them to do the last three seasons,” said Atayde.