Watered down job

(MENAFN- Arab News) THE PHILIPPINE Basketball Association's board of governors agreed on Thursday afternoon to water down the responsibilities of whomever it will name as the new commissioner before the end of the on-going Commissioner's Cup.

Distinguished members of the body were unanimous in saying that the current workload of the commissioner could be too much to handle and that they will be naming other people to handle the tasks that will be taken away from what used to be the duties and responsibilities of the commissioner.

They pointed out that the commissioner has basically a seven-day-a-week workload where he has to watch PBA games five days a week and then PBA D-League games on the other two days.

Other duties such as marketing administrative and media relations and what have you will be delegated to other people so that the new commissioner can work solely on the PBA games itself.

Even the D-League will be having its first commissioner because running the farm league will be taken away from the hands of the big boss.

'The board approved the re-organization of the PBA' said board chair Patrick Gregorio in a press briefing. 'We realize that the PBA is now a very big league. We have 12 teams we have the PBA D-League and in the third conference (of the PBA) we'll have Asian imports.'

Gregorio said that a four-man panel which will be composed of himself Purefoods' Rene Pardo Rain or Shine's Mamerto Mondragon and one independent personality to be named later will be the search committee that will name candidates for the post.

But before that the board will meet again in the next few days to formally decide on the criteria it will use in naming the candidates.

Until then it would be useless to speculate on who best fits the job.

Until the criteria comes up those who have been trying to get their names printed in the papers or announced in talk shows as candidates would have to keep quiet.

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What the board members want to happen is simply how big corporations the successful ones do their respective businesses.

The key to running an establishment with great effect is if the very man in charge of everything which in this case is the board is able to delegate responsibilities of his employees well.

Usually the CEO or president which again in this case is the board must be able to identify the best persons or executives with whom he will entrust tasks that are sensitive to the overall success of his company or corporation.

CEOs put managers or vice-presidents to head each department of his company. Those people in turn will report to the CEO on a regular basis so that Mr. CEO will always have an overview of how company is running.

Needless to say if the commissioner's responsibilities are watered down then the new organizational chart of the Office of the Commissioner will have names listed that could be considered of equal rank as that of the commissioner.

This seems to be a good idea because the very essence of the PBA is the basketball games that are watched by the public.

The game is the product the lifeblood of the PBA.

If the next commissioner will indeed have only the games to run and think of he would have all the time in the world to take a look at a lot of things that have been giving the league a bad name.

Things like the inconsistent officiating the lopsided trades and even how to police each and every team from giving under-the-table salaries to its players should be looked at and addressed at the soonest possible time.

Officiating has been very spotty for the longest time and no commissioner has been able to truly make this side of the league an impressive sight to look at. No offense to the other commissioners who came before Chito Salud.

The one-sided trades have also been haunting the recent commissioners and Salud trades like the one involving Alex Cabagnot and Sol Mercado which came at a very inappropriate time during the Philippine Cup which Cabagnot helped San Miguel Beer win. That deal just left a bad taste in the mouth.

The under-the-table deals to circumvent that salary cap rule have also been an issue for the longest time. Though this would be very hard to prove talk has been very loud for decades that this has been happening and that the Office of the Commissioner cannot do anything about it.

Mr. Next Commissioner should have the guts to look into this catch the perpetrators and mete out the necessary penalties.

The way I see it the next commissioner's duties and responsibilities may be watered down but his job to instill parity and fairness in the league will be bigger than it ever was if he would really want to make the PBA live on and become even grander.

The three things we pointed out should be the first things he must look into.

To this we say: Good Luck.