Two-year residency rule stays – UAAP

MANILA, Philippines - The UAAP is sticking to its controversial two-year residency policy for transferring junior players – for now.

According to UAAP legal counsel Rene Villa, the league has decided to continue implementing the ruling, which requires a two-year sit-out for a high school grad who wishes to move to another UAAP school but fails to secure release from his mother school.

This came after Congress failed to enact a proposed “Magna Carta for Student Athletes” into law, which would have “outlawed” the two-year policy.

“For the record, the UAAP went out of its way and sent representatives to meet up with the technical group of the Senate regarding the bill,” Villa said on behalf of the UAAP board.

Sen. Pia Cayetano, one of the rule’s staunchest critics, had filed Senate Bill No. 2166, seeking to prohibit any residency requirement. Per Senate website, the bill had been “consolidated/substituted in the committee report” before the 16th Congress adjourned its first regular session.

“In so far as the rules of the UAAP are concerned, the board has gone through this, rule by rule, and the board has decided to retain the two year residency requirement for this year,” said Villa.

“Prospectively, the board is moving towards some revisions in the future but as for the opening for this Season 77, there are really not much changes, with the board retaining most of the rules, particularly on residency,” he added.

With the two-year still in effect, Ateneo’s Jerie Pingoy, a recruit from FEU high school, will remain in the freezer for the second straight year.

The board, though, adopted one change this season: Commissioner Andy Jao now will have the final say on basketball-related disputes without board interference.

“We don’t want a repeat of previous experiences wherein the board overturned the decision of the commissioner. This time, we gave the commissioner the higher authority in game-related decisions. All appeals will go to him. There will no more be elevation of appeal to the board this year; whatever the commissioner’s decision is, it stays,” said UAAP Season 77 secretary-treasurer Rod Roque of University of the East.

In past cases, parties that did not agree with the commissioner’s ruling went up to the board for appeal. Some eventually got favorable action from the board that effectively nullified the original decision of the basketball chief.