by Migs

Everyone in the UAAP basketball world is now focused on the epic battle between the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the UST Growling Tigers to determine this season’s champion.

Underlying the drama behind this tiff, though, is yet another controversy involving the “disappearance” of a player during a crucial ballgame.

  For those of you who have been keeping score at home, you’d know that a big reason for the UE Red Warriors’ success over the course of the 2006 campaign has been the stellar play of swingman Bon Bon Custodio. The Leyte native netted a scoring average of 16.4 ppg this year, which was good enough to lead the Red Warriors and rank fifth overall in the league. He scored in single-digits in only one game out of all the games he played this year (in a September 3rd game versus UP), and has consistently crashed the boards (4.4 rpg), dished out dimes (3.3 apg), and pilfered away (1.4 spg) towards becoming the primary determining factor towards a UE win, or a UE defeat.

It’s a shame that all of Custodio’s marvelous accomplishments have recently been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his DNP status during UE’s last stand against the streaking, Jervy Cruz-led, UST Growling Tigers.

Since that game, which took place last Thursday (September 21, ironically, on the 34th anniverary of the declaration of Martial Law), many rumors have floated about. Bon Bon was supposedly paid by UST alumni, then reprimanded by University of the East officials when they discovered his breach of proper conduct. Some have said that maybe Custodio had really been injured. Others have thrown around conjecture related to the fact that perhaps those in the UE bureaucracy dissuaded their own star from suiting up because of infighting related to how the Final Four game would go down. We at Sports and Beans do not wish to affirm nor deny any of the innuendo being tossed about regarding this story. Rather, we would like to suggest that maybe it is high time people just stopped speculating on this entire thing altogether.

Invariably, in this battle of “he said, she said”, everybody will end up a loser should the gossiping persist. The UAAP will end up tainted with another unwanted polemic (as if the decorum issues connected to the La Salle ban along with issues related to game fixing from years back being linked to certain star players and their home universities haven’t been enough of an onus already). UE could very well be maligned by the media needlessly because of the ensuing opinions the general public forms from baseless fragments of hearsay. With the possible bludgeoning of UE, will surely come the cruxifiction of Bon Bon Custodio as the man, innocent or otherwise, caught in the eye of the storm. As students/alumni/supporters of the different UAAP member schools, we cannot afford the ballooning of yet another scandal involving one of our own. Such places in the realm of doubt what we scratch up our throats for every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and furthermore, stains the body of faith which defines what it means to have studied in our respective scholastic institutions. The repercussions of a continued hammering down of assumptions are not understated per se. Rather, they’re merely kept under wraps, which, really, is similar to saying that a falling boulder can’t hurt us so long as we have an umbrella on hand to absorb its impact. Wile E. Coyote never did come across a migraine he didn’t like, so, the logic behind being tacit, and ultimately, being cavalier, here, is very obviously flawed.

It’s my fervent hope, then, that the guns that have been aimed squarely at Bon Bon Custodio be laid down, never again to be brought out and cocked, unless there is SUFFICIENT cause to do so. If Custodio was physically debilitated, then leave him be. Let him recuperate in peace. Assuming there’s more of a fire here than what had been initially expected, we should allow those in the position to investigate the merits of this case from both sides of the coin carry out their sworn duty before we go around making conclusions. If and when proof pointing towards a certain stance is unearthed and once its veracity is ascertained, allow those who must answer for faults answer for faults and those who had possibly been wrongfully judged be exonerated. We cannot hope to remain unscathed in the course of working on having this matter killed and buried if we INSIST on performing somersaults in the dark. =)