Allan, Yves, Samboy among Inquirer’s first sports heroes
When the 1985 Philippine national basketball team flew to Kuala Lumpur for the Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) championship in December that year, the Inquirer was barely a month old yet already in the thick of the action.
And in the next 40 years, the national quintet would always be a main part of the Inquirer Sports coverage plans.
The 1985 team that left for the Malaysian capital had a single mission, according to one of its top alumni, Allan Caidic.
“We were there for one reason. The team, for the whole year, knew what the goal was,” Caidic, still considered the best Filipino sharpshooter on the hardcourt, told the Inquirer in an interview on Dec. 5. “We wanted to reclaim the Asian throne from China.”
‘Danding’-funded
The team was then coached by the late Ron Jacobs and funded by the late business tycoon and former ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. through one of his companies, Northern Consolidated Cement (NCC).
The squad that would also be known as NCC was composed of naturalized players Jeff Moore and Dennis Still from the United States and top local amateurs like Caidic, Yves Dignadice, the late Samboy Lim, Hector Calma, Franz Pumaren, Tonichi Yturri, Pido Jarencio and Alfie Almario, among others.
Nodding knowingly beside Caidic during the Inquirer interview, Dignadice said: “If there’s one thing that team was known for, it was that everyone understood their roles.”
“If you’re a shooter, shoot. Me, I was there for defense and rebound. But everything was so well-planned that everybody knew what to do on offense and defense.”
Tournament MVP
The nationals eventually got what they came for in KL. Meeting the Chinese in the finals, the Philippines stormed out of the gates in the second half, with Caidic—who was eventually named tournament MVP—and Lim on the firing end.
The two stars led the team in scoring and eventually made it to the ABC Mythical Five, along with the Chinese pair of Zhang Bin and Sun Fengwu and Korean hotshot Lee Chung-hee.
There was a reason why the NCC squad dedicated its time and resources for almost all of 1985 to win the ABC crown.
Before NCC, the last time the Philippines won the ABC crown was in 1973, with a squad bannered by legends Robert Jaworski and Ramon Fernandez.
Two years later, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) was born, attracting the top talents of the country and weakening the pool for the national team.
For 12 years, a country so enamored with the sport was left heartbroken as China maintained its vise-like grip on the ABC crown.
That ended in the 1985 ABC tournament.
Roller-coaster ride
The ABC championship was held on Jan. 5, 1986, but the young Inquirer was already covering the Philippine campaign when it began on Dec 28, 1985.
Since then, the Inquirer has seen the national team—as it refreshed its lineup and coaching staff over the last four decades—through its toughest times and biggest triumphs.
The roller-coaster ride started in 1990, when the Open era of basketball allowed the Philippines to send pros to international competitions. But still, China held sway, whipping the country by 65 points in one early encounter before winning by 14 in the championship game.
That tournament forced upon Filipino fans a sobering realization: We were no longer the best basketball country in Asia.
New rival: South Korea
In 1998, when a revitalized program saw the PBA form the Centennial Team, the Inquirer covered the squad from its inception to its backbreaking boot camp in the United States, where the squad battled several collegiate teams.
Eventually, the Philippines would sputter in the Asian Games that year, its hopes reduced to tatters by a new emerging rival, South Korea.
The Inquirer also covered some dark years, when the Philippines was banned from international competition due to infighting among local basketball officials.
Birth of Gilas
But eventually, there would be bigger programs and more victories. The Inquirer witnessed the birth of Gilas Pilipinas and its evolution, and how it led the country back to the World Cup.
The Philippines would never again win the ABC Championship, now named the Fiba Asia Cup. But in 2023, Gilas Pilipinas became the banner story of Inquirer Sports pages when it ended a 61-year wait for the Asian Games crown.
Led by Tim Cone, the national team rocked host China with a huge semifinal upset before defeating Jordan for the gold.
Disbanded after Edsa
Looking back, Dignadice said, the 1985 NCC team had grown so confident after dominating the ABC at the time that “I felt like we could have made it to the Olympics.’’ (The 1988 Summer Games in Seoul was just two years away.)
That dream, however, would not materialize as the team disbanded after the February 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.
The Philippines still owns the distinction of being the best Asian finisher in Olympic basketball history after it placed fifth in Berlin 1936. The last time it competed on the Summer Games hardcourt was in Munich 1972.
The road back to the Olympics for the Philippine team may still be long, but Inquirer Sports will always be there to witness how every inch is gained.
