The Final Score: Is the modified UAAP rule on transferees punitive or progressive?

Reaction to a modified UAAP rule was swift. But I could understand why some fans condemned the development so hastily.   Under the old rule, an athlete had to sit out one year before competing for another UAAP university, unless he or she secured an official clearance from his UAAP high school. Under the modified rule, that same athlete must sit out two years instead of just one. Securing a clearance no longer helps. [Related: UAAP players react on Twitter to new high school residency rule] Doesn’t it sound like a punishment? Nevertheless, student-athletes straight out of UAAP high schools can still choose to enroll in a different UAAP institution. They can still compete for five years. That right still exists. That right, however, now comes with an expanded consequence. If you want it so much, then go right ahead and wait a little longer. If it’s a punitive policy, which is being punished: the student-athlete who wants to transfer or the UAAP institution that convinced a student-athlete to make the switch? Maybe it’s a policy to penalize both. Why even punish them at all? What if we give the UAAP Board some credit. What if this new policy is actually progressive? It will not only discourage recruitment among UAAP schools (I believe the term some league officials used was “piracy”), it might even encourage UAAP schools to bolster their high school programs. School policies will evolve. Budget allocations will shift. It’s a victory for grassroots development. Score points for the genuine development of homegrown talent. “The schools are protecting their high school programs,” Em Fernandez, head of the UAAP Amendments Committee, said. “Because their high school programs are really geared towards improving their college programs.” If this modified UAAP rule sticks, I hope, in the long run, high school coaches earn higher paychecks, high school athletes are able to train under better conditions and high school teams get better treatment from their universities. Thus, loyalty to an institution from high school to college becomes a natural behavior, not a forced trait. That’s the point of the modified rule, right? Still, I see the expansion of this rule as a form of forced gentlemen’s agreement among UAAP schools. It’s policy-making that is both rational and emotional. It’s an admission that student-athletes, like Jerie Pingoy who appears ready to transfer from FEU to Ateneo, like other student-athletes who have various reasons for wanting to move somewhere else, are more than willing to transfer to other UAAP schools and such willingness had to be addressed decisively. As in most policies governing the UAAP, it’s difficult to find a moral middle ground. Often sportsmanship and high-stakes competition clash. Is this the Jerie Pingoy Anti-Piracy Rule? Stop raiding our high schools. Go strengthen your own. Anyway, we can all continue recruiting with gusto from the NCAA, all over the country, all over the world. To transfer should be a right. It still is. Choice starting next season, however, won’t come cheap. But I suppose in the competitive atmosphere of today’s college sports, nothing ever is. - AMD, GMA News