Inside the game

BAP BAP black sheep

It isn’t wise to start the New Year on the wrong foot. But the Basketball Association of the Philippines apparently wants to do just that.

If you’re reading this on the 11th of January, then somewhere along today, the BAP is filing a libel suit against Inquirer columnist Recah Trinidad and sports editor Teddyvic Melendres.

I read a faxed advisory by the group’s lawyer, Bonifacio Alentajan (yes, him. Apparently the BAP believes that one controversy-riddled organization deserves a controvery-riddled lawyer) but failed to make a mental note as to where the case was to be filed.

They did not specify which of Ka Recah’s columns is the subject of their libel case but since my job entails copyreading, editing and closing sports pages for the country’s No. 1 paper, I pretty much have an idea as to which piece is under judicial fire right now.

It is the one where Ka Recah calls BAP sec-gen Graham Lim a bedbug. A surot.

Now, I am not well-versed on the intricacies of libel law but I do remember that malice has to be explicit. In Ka Recah’s column, when he called Graham Lim a surot, it was only because he was narrating a conversation that took place during a coffee shop meeting with Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

And in that conversation, it wasn’t even Ka Recah who called Graham Lim a surot. It was another sports journalist he code-named B. Trust me, the journalist isn’t a figment of Ka Recah’s imagination so that he could use it to shield him from libel charges.

B exists. B uttered the phrase calling Graham Lim a surot. I know B.

That has to count as something in a libel suit, right?

Anyway. That’s beside the point. The point is, I find it funny that Graham Lim is ruffled at someone for calling him surot.

Technically, he isn’t. He is a human being, going by his anatomical parts and genetic make-up. Somewhere right between the ears, though, is where the debate arises as to what branch of the animal kingdom he really belongs to.

What branch of the biological kingdom, actually.

So, to set the record straight, Graham Lim is not a surot. Not a bedbug.

He is an alien. He is an illegal alien who continues to illegally reside in the Philippines because of a bureaucratic system that allows him to sidestep the lines by which what is legal is defined.

Because of that bureaucracy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already carries a Philippine passport despite a court order to have him deported immediately.

He is a sports official who has more than just the sport’s interest in mind, judging by the way he has handled the affairs of the BAP of late.

If the sport were a living, breathing being with a legal personality, it would have sued him in court, too, for attempted murder, rape and grave abuse of power.

Or it would have gone caveman, tied a noose around his balls so tight until they turned blue and then attached the other end of the rope to a caffeine-overdosed kangaroo.

But hey, basketball’s a sport and Graham Lim is a being of some kind who can hire a lawyer to file libel charges in his behalf. So, instead of Graham Lim being tried for treason—which is what the degeneration of the country’s favorite sport under his watch should amount to—it is Ka Recah and Teddyvic who will be facing a legal suit.

Will it prosper?

Can you drop a cube of ice in hell and expect the whole of Satan’s lair to freeze over?

Let me give you the idea of how affected the sports desk was when the media advisory of the libel suit was faxed to us.

Teddyvic, sipping coffee from a Zodiac-themed cup, read the details on the faxprint and commented out loudly as to how stupid he was to FORGET PUTTING SUGAR IN HIS COFFEE.

He showed me the media advisory and my first reaction was I’VE GOT EXTRA PACKETS OF NUTRASWEET AND WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE ONE?

And when the faxprint was passed around, somebody wondered if I COULD PLEASE HAVE THE OTHER PACKET OF NUTRASWEET I SEEM TO HAVE RUN OUT OF SUGAR TOO.

I don’t know where the media advisory ended up.

Graham Lim can never be tried for his crimes against basketball. But the sport’s fans out there can get to work by writing letters and asking the Taiwanese citizen why our hopes are dimming for a ticket to the Olympics.

Graham Lim, a surot? Of course not.

The worst bedbug bite can never do as much damage to a sport the way he already has.

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