10 most infamous PBA moments of the last 30 years

Aside from being our primary source of basketball excellence, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) can lay claim to being the nation’s longest-running telenovela. Through the years, we’ve been given a healthy dose of drama and controversy, with a huge serving of some rough action, and an intriguing revolving cast of characters.

Like any good telenovela, the PBA has given us its fair share of cringe-worthy moments. We list down 10 of the most unforgettable scenes — for all the wrong reasons — scenes to have taken place in the PBA in the last 30 years. Of course, we explain why it will forever live in basketball infamy.    

Art by Jannielyn Ann Bigtas

1. THE BRAWL
In the Game 4 of the Battle for Third Place series of the 1988 Reinforced Conference (Dec 11, 1988), there were still 8:23 left in the 3rd quarter

What the F Happened: For the full blow-by-blow account, we take you back to the jampacked, sweaty ’80s-era ULTRA with Sev Sarmenta and Quinito Henson giving the analysis.

Two questions that are surely on your mind after watching that grainy footage: (1) What the hell did Quinito mean by a “regular brawl”? We mean: Is there a “special” one? (2) Surely someone had to pay major money for this fracas, right?

Our answers: (1) We also have no idea. Mr. Henson is a sportscasting enigma. (2) The Añejo Rum 65ers’ dynamic brawling import duo of Joe Ward and Tommy “I’m a Minister” Davis were each fined ?5,000.

Presto Ice Cream Makers’ Dennis Abatuan (who threw chairs and a flying kick at the 65ers’ imports) and Atoy Co (who was in street clothes but wasn’t about to miss the chance to hit someone) had to fork over ?3,000 each, while sweet-talker Philip Cezar paid ?2,000.

Añejo 65ers’ resident bad boy Rudy “The Destroyer” Distrito, meanwhile, was given a plaque of commemoration for his “Peacemaking Ways.”

That last one was a joke of course. Although you might not see him clearly in the video, Distrito got his licks in and paid ?3,000 for it. 

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: one of the reasons the nation fell in love with the PBA. This was Game 4 of a series that aimed to determine who will get THIRD PLACE bragging rights. Yet, obviously, no one cared that the victor will get a smaller trophy—they just wanted to win and trample the opposition in the process. Beautiful.

2. THE WALKOUT
In the 2nd Quarter of Game 6 of the 1990 PBA 1st Conference finals (May 15, 1990) with only 2:52 left

WTFH: Down 1-3 and on the brink of losing the championship series, the Añejo Rum 65ers found themselves playing catch-up to a Formula Shell Zoom Masters ballclub seeking their first title.

Down by 14 after the first quarter, Añejo tried desperately to mount a comeback anchored on their explosive import Sylvester Gray. The 65ers managed to trim the Zoom Masters’ lead to eight mid-way of the second canto, but their run was halted by back-to-back personal fouls called on Gray (his fourth and fifth, respectively).

A few plays later, Añejo’s do-it-all forward Rey Cuenco was assessed two straight technical fouls for arguing a call, disqualifying him from the game. The infraction took the beleaguered Añejo fans over the edge. They pelted the court with about anything they could get their hands on.

Team manager Bernabe Navarro and head coach Robert Jaworski then led the 65ers back to their locker room. The Zoom Masters followed suit.

PBA Commissioner Rudy Salud gave both teams 10 minutes to return to the playing area, which Formula Shell heeded. Añejo refused. Commissioner Salud gave Jawo’s team two 90-second ultimatums to go back on the court but to no avail.

With the 65ers nowhere in sight, Formula Shell was declared PBA champions by game forfeiture.

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: Jawo and the whole Añejo-Ginebra nation at their most cynical. The 65ers insisted that the referees were favoring their opponents, with Jawo even calling the game a “stage play… Somebody out there is designing this whole thing.”

The franchise was slapped a whopping ?550,000 for their actions, then the biggest fine in league history. Although similar acts of protest later happened in the PBA — Yeng Guiao and the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters were fined ?507,000 for briefly leaving the playing court in Game 4 of the 2006 Philippine Cup finals, while Chot Reyes and the Talk N’ Text Phone Pals shelled out over ?1 million for walking out of their 2010 Philippine Cup quarterfinal match-up with Ginebra — it doesn’t come near the drama and controversy of the 1990 version.

The moment also further fueled the burgeoning Añejo-Shell rivalry, and served as catalyst to their classic rematch in the 1991 First Conference finals, a series Ginebra fans might fondly refer to as “the-one-where-we-were-down-1-3-again-but-came-all-the-way-back-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-Shell.” 

3. THE GREAT FALL
San Miguel Beermen vs. Purefoods Hotdogs, 1989

WTFH: From his college career in Letran to his days as a mainstay of the national team bankrolled by Northern Consolidated Cement, and then finally when he set foot in the PBA as a grizzled rookie in 1988, no one could stop the sky-walking act of Avelino “Samboy” Lim. Well, expect for injuries and you know, love taps from opponents… 

That second fall (at the 00:50 mark) gave Samboy a concussion and a cut on his forehead that required 26 stitches to close.

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: Jojo “JoLas” Lastimosa at his dirtiest. Samboy followers have argued that JoLas secretly envied Samboy, despite the two being the best of friends and teammates during their amateur commercial days.

The Skywalker though wouldn’t have any of it, as he reportedly instantly forgave Lastimosa when the latter visited him in the hospital. Lim’s humble nature on and off the court led the PBA to award him the first Sportsmanship Award.

Samboy would suffer many other bruises and falls throughout his career—he owns the double distinction of being among a handful of players who stayed with the same team throughout his career and who never got to complete a full season of play. But every injury seemed to endear him much more to the basketball public, who appreciated the death-defying acts that preceded it and eventually grew fond of waiting for the return of their idol on the hardcourt.

4. THE SHOVE
In Game 4 of the 1995 PBA All-Filipino finals (May 14, 1995) with 17.6 seconds left

WTFH: Riding the almost-superstar status he accumulated from his days with Ginebra, Distrito was traded to the Swift Mighty Meaties and quickly found himself in the starting lineup. With Distrito in tow, the Mighty Meaties won the 1993 Commissioner’s Cup championship.

Renamed the Sunkist Orange Juicers, the team was on their way to another title in the 1995 season when they hit a snag. Actually, it was Distrito who did all the hitting…  

Distrito was assessed personal and flagrant fouls for his rough tactic. The Destroyer’s victim, Alaska Milkmen’s then-rookie Jeffrey Cariaso, sunk three free throws to seal the win. A few days later, PBA Commissioner Jun Bernardino, citing Distrito’s “unsportmanlike conduct in the past,” decided to ban the veteran guard for the remainder of the 1995 season. 

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: The Destroyer’s final dastardly act on the PBA hardcourt. The Games and Amusements Board supplemented the PBA’s ruling by stripping the veteran guard of his basketball license, effectively ending his days in the pro league.

Distrito would make a brief comeback in 1999 with the San Juan Knights in the now-defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) before finally calling it quits. The Destroyer made headlines anew in 2004 when he was convicted of manslaughter in Las Vegas. He got paroled six years later and is now living a (hopefully) quiet life in his hometown of Bacolod.

5. THE SLIT THROAT SIGN
In the final game of the 1997 PBA All-Filipino Cup semifinal round (April 29, 1997) with only 40 seconds left

WTFH: On April 30, 1997, the day after the Gordon’s Gin Boars eliminated the San Miguel Beermen from championship contention in the PBA All-Filipino Cup, rumors circulated that Allan Caidic had passed away.

There was no Internet back then, but the “report” quickly spread, supposedly because the whole nation had tuned into the game the night before and saw what happened to The Triggerman…

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: Jaworski at his most ruthless / Jaworski at his most misunderstood. Those who believe in the former can be considered among the Big J’s haters. For those loyal to Ginebra, it should come as a surprise that their great idol is reviled by many and is often considered the ultimate bully, a player who will do anything to win.

The Jawo diehards obviously subscribes to the latter thinking. For them, the Big J is an astute man who is prone to emotional outbursts. Whatever the Ginebra legend really meant with his actions, what’s more important is that the other legend in the accident, Caidic, came out of it virtually unscathed.

6. THE BIG CON
1999 PBA Season

WTFH: Alvarado Segova was a 6’7” forward who liked shooting from the outside. Rob Parker played better than his team’s import. Sonny Alvarado looked like the next big superstar, a 6’7” do-it-all player with skills rarely seen in this part of the world from a man his size…

What took PBA teams so long to discover these talented half-Filipino players? The answer: They weren’t supposed to have heard of them, cause apparently, they weren’t Filipinos.

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: the biggest, boldest sham to hit the PBA. Prior to its 1999 season, the PBA introduced a slew of innovations designed to improve their product and further distance themselves from their newfound rival, the upstart MBA.

One such clause was to allow teams to directly hire a new player. It brought to our shores half-Filipinos like Danny Seigle, Asi Taulava, Jayjay Helterbrand, and Mick Pennisi. Although many of these foreign-raised players were able to prove their Pinoy lineage, some recruits were later proven to have manipulated their records to pass themselves off as part-Filipinos. Alvarado, Parker, and Segova were among the most notable of these “Fil-Shams” who left the PBA and the country shortly after they were busted.

7. THE KICK AND RUN
In the knockout playoff match of the 2008 PBA Fiesta Conference (July 9, 2008) with 9:46 left

WTFH: Two-time PBA MVP James Carlos Yap has many monikers, all of which underscore his fame both in and out of the hardcourt: The Man with a Million Moves, Big Game James, Tatay ni Bimby, and the King of Tadyak Sabay Takbo. That last one he gained during this altercation with Talk N’ Text Phone Pals import Terrence Leather:

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: James Yap at his springiest. You can’t blame Yap for deciding not to take on the fuming 6’9”, 240-pound Leather. But you can’t also blame the countless Pinoy basketball fans who derided Yap for his seemingly cowardly ways.

“Nangyari kasi, nabato si Jondan [Salvador] ng bola, so natural lang na gugustuhin kong depensahan at ipagtanggol ang teammate ko,” explained Yap a few days after the melee. In the same interview, the then-Purefoods Giants star also apologized to his fans for his action. A total of ?244,400 worth of fines were issued by the PBA following the incident, with Leather (?62,400) and Yap (?50,000) bearing the brunt of the bill.

8 THE WANDERING FINGER
In the 2nd Quarter of Game 1 of the 2011 PBA Governor’s Cup finals series (Aug 7, 2011) with 2:33 left

WTFH: Here’s what you need to know before watching the video below: The Talk N’ Text Tropang Texters, coached by current Gilas Pilipinas tactician Chot Reyes, had won the two earlier conferences of the 2010-2011 season putting them in contention of completing a rare PBA Grandslam. Standing in their way was the Petron Blaze Boosters, who had discovered a new bounce to their step thanks to their versatile import Anthony Grundy.

Wanting to take Grundy out of his game, Reyes sent in his resident enforcer, third-year forward Mark Yee, to hound Petron’s reinforcement. It’s unclear though whether Reyes had any part in what Yee decided to do to bother Grundy.  

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: the ultimate distraction. Yee and his wayward finger, if anything, showed the lengths the Tropang Texters were willing to go to, to bag their third straight title. Alas, Petron spoiled their plans, edging TNT in seven games. Yee is currently with his fifth team in the pro league. Now a nine-year veteran, he’s embraced his role as a banger and is hopefully teaching his younger teammates a thing or two about defending imports. 

9. THE FLOP
In the second quarter in the Barako Bull vs. Petron elimination round game of the 2012 PBA Commissioner’s Cup (March 21, 2012) with 8:45 lefts

WTFH: Fil-Australian Mick Pennisi has been a member of five PBA champion teams, has don the national colors a couple of times, and is only the eight player in league history to make 700 three-point shots. But all that is dwarfed by this moment:  

PBA Titos will forever remember it as…Pennisi’s crowning as the ultimate big man alaskador of the PBA. Taking that hit allowed Mick to accomplish his role early—to annoy the heck out of the other team’s import and ultimately get him out of the game. With their import, Will McDonald, ejected, Petron succumbed to Barako Bull. But it didn’t end there for Pennisi, he soon found himself in numerous blog posts and even on the ESPN Sportcenter’s Not 10 Plays. “It wasn’t good acting. Actually, it was good bad acting,” said Pennisi later on of the flop seen around the world. He also explained that he saw his wife glaring at him after he got hit on the head with the ball. Instead of confronting McDonald and earning the ire of his wife, he decided to fall down and sell the call. “That's why it was delayed,” revealed Pennisi.

10. THE CHOKE
In the Petron vs. Alaska elimination round game of the 2013 PBA Commissioner’s Cup (March 8, 2013)  with just 21.6 left

WTFH: Before they rediscovered their winning ways as the San Miguel Beermen, the longest tenured team in the PBA was known as the Petron Blaze Boosters. It’s unlikely they’ll revert anytime soon to that name, what with the checkered history they had with it.

As the Blaze Boosters from 2011 to 2014 the franchise experienced their most tumultuous period in the PBA. After beating Talk N’ Text in the 2011 Governor’s Cup finals it all went downhill for Petron with multiple coaching changes and internal strife hounding the team.

All the drama, christened by fans as "Petronovela", seemed to be behind them in the early stages of the 2013 Commissioner’s Cup. With NBA veteran Renaldo Balkman as their import, the Boosters won five of their first six games. Then, on their seventh game, disaster struck, and a new ugly chapter was added to Petronovela. 

PBA Titos will forever remember it as: the craziest teammate-versus-teammate incident ever. Balkman would later apologize to Arwind Santos and the rest of his teammates, the Petron coaching staff, and the whole PBA. But that didn’t stop Commissioner Chito Salud from slapping the Puerto Rican a hefty ?250,000 fine along with a lifetime ban. Bye-bye, Balkman! — LA, GMA News

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