I’m just going to say it outright: There really is a problem with the City of Bogo Science and Arts Academy (CBSAA) high school basketball team.
There’s a culture of violence in the team. And if you say I’m based because I’m making such judgement based on two clips that I saw recently—one of CBSAA No. 10 elbowing repeatedly a downed Ateneo player on a loose-ball scramble and of another intentionally hitting a player on the back of the head while pretending to go for a rebound—I’m not.
Those two things show malicious intent and are just but a few of the many incidents CBSAA has found itself in ever since it joined Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) by invitation—by invitation, mind you back in 2022. I’ve covered Cesafi since it started back in 2001 and I haven’t seen such a school get involved in so many incidents; and that’s not including in the Cviraa (Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association).
How did the Bogo City-based school repay the invitation? By showing how rough they play. By showing that their brand of basketball is something Cebu should never be proud of.
I’m not involved with Ateneo basketball nor do I know any of the current parents but my blood boiled when I saw those two plays. There’s a reason why boxers aren’t allowed to hit the back of the head of their foes and then we have two high school players with nothing short of murderous intent inside a basketball court. Their coach was suspended for a season for what the team did in the finals against Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu and this is what they show? They never learn?
This is not about an elite school bullying a province-based school. Heck, Ateneo never prodded me to write this. This is about player safety. When will the league act? When a player suffers lifelong consequences because of a hit to the back of the head?
What’s wrong with Bogo basketball? What are they teaching their players? The same team showed how low they can go in the Cviraa finals just a few months ago and the fact that they haven’t changed a bit shows they don’t care. And if they don’t care it means CBSAA has no place in the Cesafi.
No amount of monetary fines or long suspensions can change a school that has seemingly developed a culture of violence and the best way for Cesafi to get rid of such culture, to show that the league does not condone any violence in any form is for the league to get rid of CBSAA.
There are more deserving schools in Cebu City who deserve to be part of the league and if CBSAA doesn’t value its membership of the league and is not concerned that it is part of a greater whole, one that should be a positive representation of Cebu schools, then it does not deserve a place in the Cesafi.
I’m sorry. I no longer buy excuses such as it was done in the heat of the moment. This was not. You don’t develop players with violent intent if, in their grassroots development they were taught not to resort to violence.
Again, it’s time for the league to kick out CBSAA before the school becomes a bigger problem for the league.
