By Anthony Divinagracia

(October 6, 2023) – Eleven years.

Longer than two World Wars combined.

Just enough to cram two presidential terms.

Perhaps raise a child up to the fifth grade.

Yet above all, see the Philippines dominate basketball in the Asian Games from 1951 to 1962.

To some, it was a foregone conclusion. Arguably, a country with deep historical ties to the Americans, who propagated the game, should not disappoint.

Boy, they certainly did not.

Prior to the Asiad, the Filipinos were the undisputed kings of basketball in the Pacific, winning nine of 10 titles in the pre-war Far Eastern Games.

For starters, the Far Eastern Games was considered the forerunner of the Asian Games. The Philippines as one of its founders, ruled the first four editions of the basketball games under the American flag. China denied the country a fifth straight title in 1921 before the Philippines reclaimed the crown and held on to it until the games were disbanded in 1934.

Seventeen years later, the Asian Games was born and the Philippines made sure its reign in the defunct Far Eastern Games was no historical fluke.

Restarting the dominance

Basketball was the only team sport played in the 1951 Asiad held in New Delhi, India. The Philippines, six years removed from the horrors of World War II, saw the games as a venue to establish diplomatic ties in the region even with its erstwhile invader Japan. The feeling was mutual as Japan, host India, Iran, and Burma joined the Filipino cagers, who paraded a band of wide-eyed youngsters raring to show their wares on the international stage.

Among them were soon-to-be legends Rafael Hechenova, Ignacio “Ning” Ramos, Mariano Tolentino, Moro Lorenzo, Lauro Mumar, and a 21-year-old mestizo lad named Carlos Loyzaga.

The Filipinos cut their opponents to size, blasting Burma (63-15), Iran (65-41), Japan (57-33), and India (86-36) in the round-robin eliminations. At the time, there were no playoffs to determine the medal winners, and each team’s final ranking was based on its win-loss record. The Philippines, in effect, ran away with the gold, thanks to an impressive 4-0 sweep of the tournament. Japan bagged the silver (3-1) and Iran (2-2) took the bronze.

With the gold proudly swaddled around their necks, the Filipinos—alongside their compatriots who medaled in New Delhi—received a heroes’ welcome upon arriving from the Asiad. But for the country’s new basketball idols, it was a homecoming that predated another celebration three years in the making.

Loyzaga and company practically had one thing in mind: Repeat the feat in front of their countrymen, with the Philippines hosting the second Asian Games in 1954.

Higher stakes

From five in 1951, the basketball meet in Manila expanded into an eight-team contest. Only the Philippines and Japan returned. Yet other countries were as eager to prove their worth on the hardcourt. Among them was South Korea, which just signed an armistice agreement with the North to end the Korean War in 1953. There was Taiwan, also called the “Republic of China,” which had just formally regained its independence from Japan in 1952 but continued to lock horns with Mao’s Communist China.

Singapore, then mired by political riots and appeared on the verge of civil war, also joined the Asiad bandwagon, together with neighboring Thailand, Indonesia, and newly independent Cambodia. To raise the stakes a notch higher, the Manila games also served as the qualifying tournament for the 1954 World Basketball Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in October.

Unlike in New Delhi, the 1954 joust instituted a playoff round with the top two teams in each group advancing to the round-robin medal phase.

Bannered by the 1951 core of Loyzaga, Mumar, Hechenova, Ramos, and Tolentino, the Filipinos easily ruled Group A, whipping South Korea (84-45), Singapore (82-63), and Cambodia (106-41).

The Philippines and South Korea advanced to the medal round together with Group B top-notchers Japan and Taiwan. The highly touted Filipinos blew past the Japanese (68-40) and the Koreans (76-52), but encountered stiff resistance from a stubborn Taiwanese side before hacking out a 34-27 squeaker to the delight of the 12,000 fans at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

Clearly, the defending champions had a hard time disposing of eventual second-placer Taiwan, then powered by a sweet-shooting crew that included Yin Juin Wang and the namesake of two-time PBA MVP James Yap. Interestingly, the “Taiwanese” James Yap was “half-Filipino,” who grew up in the Philippines and even studied at Chiang Kai-Shek College in Manila. He went on to represent Taiwan in the 1954 World Championship and the 1956 Olympics.

But the final game was almost called off before halftime. The Manila Times said the incident took off from a foul whistled by Japanese referee Yoshihide Makiyama on Hechenova with 55 seconds left in the first half. The crowd resented the call and began throwing “paper balls, and later soft drink bottles.” President Ramon Magsaysay’s daughter Milagros, who watched the games from the presidential box, was immediately covered by five security guards and two patrolmen when the throwing erupted.

One of those struck by the riotous pelting was Taiwan main man Wang, who was rushed to the hospital after an errant bottle wounded his face.

Taiwan team manager Kiang Liong Kuy had already informed Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation (PAAF) basketball committee member Leonardo “Skip” Guinto that they will pull out of the game. PAAF basketball chairperson and former Olympian Ambrosio Padilla persuaded Kiang to continue and “assured him that repetition of the incident would cause postponement of the game.”

But as the pieces of debris were carted out of the court, two “Chinese fans” then engaged in a fistfight in the upper box near the entrance for undisclosed reasons. The police arrested them before the second half started. During the halftime break, Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson visited the Taiwanese dugout to apologize for the incident. The PAAF basketball committee also issued a statement of apology after the game.

Despite the unsightly, perhaps unexpected end for a victory, the Filipinos still did more than enough to retain the gold on home soil and secure a ticket to Rio de Janeiro, where Loyzaga and company will soon bask in basketball immortality after claiming the bronze medal in the World Championship.

Three-peat

With the ball literally in their court, the Akatsuki Five of the early days brimmed as favorites, all poised and pumped up to reclaim lost ground after a lowly third-place finish in Manila. Of course, it entailed dethroning the mighty Filipinos who have nixed their basketball aspirations since the blighted years of the Far Eastern Games.

But the Philippines was not yet ready to give up its throne, especially with the phenomenal Loyzaga and Tolentino signing up for another tour of duty. Flanking them are a new cast of legends-in-the-making like Carlos Badion, Kurt Bachmann, Martin Urra, and Antonio Villamor, who etched a name for himself after leading National University to its first UAAP title in 1954, the same year the Philippines won its second Asiad basketball gold.

Malaysia, which became an independent nation after the British handover in 1957, and Hong Kong, another British territory, completed the 10 teams for the 1958 tiff.

As expected, the Philippines topped its preliminary group by waylaying Thailand (87-40) and Malaysia (110-60). In the medal round, the Filipinos outclassed South Korea (99-85) and Singapore (93-55) but fell to the dreaded Taiwanese, 93-88, and absorbed their first Asian Games loss.

It was a painful defeat for the sweep-minded Filipinos. But they have no time to sink in contemplation. The gold, after all, was still within reach and the Philippines quickly rebounded, tripping Thailand 82-75, and Japan, 90-83, to wrap up its campaign. As it turned out, the Filipinos finished in a three-way tie with Japan and Taiwan at 4-1, yet the Philippines retained the gold by virtue of the winner-over-the-other rule. The Japanese, who settled for the bronze, had earlier nipped eventual silver medalist Taiwan, 87-85, to give the Philippines a big lift for its third straight Asiad gold.

Road to immortality

Loyzaga was again at the cusp of the four-peat-seeking Filipinos’ campaign in the 1962 Jakarta Games. But politics momentarily sidelined the Philippines’ historic drive. The Indonesian government refused to issue visas for the Israeli and Taiwanese delegations. President Sukarno barred Taiwan from the games after the People’s Republic of China insisted it will only compete sans the Chinese outlanders.

Taiwan’s withdrawal reduced the field to nine teams. More importantly, it denied the Taiwanese a repeat of their 1958 shocker against the Filipinos. Putting politics aside, the Filipinos brandished their feared dominance once more, ripping South Korea (84-68), host Indonesia (107-74), Thailand (108-73), Hong Kong (100-68), and Japan (101-67), to complete the Asiad’s first basketball four-peat.

Japan gained from Taiwan’s absence, copping the silver, while South Korea finally barged into the medal podium. For the Koreans, it was the dawn of a new era as the legendary Shin Dong-pa would later join the team and set its succeeding Asian Games stints on a winning note. China also slowly developed into a basketball power, even matching the Philippines’ basketball four-peat with its own romp from 1986 to 1998.

Save for a silver in 1990 and a pair of bronzes in 1986 and 1998, the Philippines’ Asiad fortunes were never the same again. Hopefully, in Hangzhou, all that will change for the better.

(PM)