'El Presidente' believes an all-cadet roster is the way for Gilas Pilipinas

Ramon Fernandez firmly believes that Gilas Pilipinas should stick with these cadet players when seeing action in major international events.

Fernandez, a 19-time PBA champion and former mainstay of the national team, said he is not discrediting the ability of professional cagers but stressed that developing younger players earlier in the careers will only benefit the program in the long run.

"For me, it should be the kids we're sending in these competitions," Fernandez, nicknamed 'El Presidente', said in Filipino during his interview on Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) forum on Tuesday.

"Not for anything else but this is thinking long-term. If we expose the kids early, they will improve. The PBA players, meanwhile, will also improve but not the same as the younger players because their bones and muscles are starting to get rigid."

Fernandez understands Gilas' situation very well.

According to the basketball legend, during his time in the now-defunct Manila Industrial Athletic Association (MICAA) as part of the San Miguel Braves, the Basketball Association of the Philippines, which was then the national association for basketball, was having a hard time getting players to join the national team.

He then recalled that schedules of both the national team and the league would be compromised just to have the players fulfill their obligations to the flag and their mother teams.

"This should have been (done) a long time ago. We know for a fact, (and) we experienced it already, that it's really difficult to get players from the pro ranks to play for the national team," Fernandez, now a PSC commissioner and the country's chef de mission to the Vietnam SEA Games, added.

"During our time, we would be lent to the basketball federation from our mother teams and so the calendar of MICAA would get distracted. We never learn from history, that's the problem."

And based on how the young Gilas Pilipinas team fared in the recent 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, an all-amateur cast can still yield a competitive squad.

The Filipinos swept the qualifiers at 6-0 to lead the Group A that also consists of Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea. The historic feat also punched the nationals a ticket to the continental showpiece slated this August with Indonesia serving as host.

Fernandez, who helped the country strike gold in the 1973 FIBA Asia Championship and FIBA Asia Under-18 Championship in 1972,  said SBP should continue charting this path of sending young guns into heavyweight fields in order for them to get important exposure early.

"This is a better path for SBP that they send the youth to these games so that the quality of basketball will also improve."

—Bea Micaller/JMB, GMA News