Inside the UAAP’s Decision to Keep Ateneo Eligible 

Multiple league sources told us at ALL-STAR Magazine that while the UAAP had initially expected to lean heavily on CHED’s findings before making a final determination on Ateneo, the league ultimately decided it could no longer leave the university and its student-athletes in limbo.

There were immediate deadlines to consider.

The UAAP Season 89 boys’ 16-under basketball tournament is scheduled to begin on August 15. Ateneo’s student-athletes have also already enrolled for the new academic year. For the UAAP, sources said, there needed to be clarity over whether they could represent their school before competition began and before athletes were forced to make decisions about their futures without knowing Ateneo’s standing in the league.

That resulted in Friday’s decision confirming that Ateneo’s men’s basketball team remains eligible for Season 89, which formally opens on September 12.

The decision came almost exactly two months after Rene Clert “Bobet” Baterbonia and Chukwuemeka Divine Adili drowned during the Blue Eagles’ June 8 team-building activity in Dipaculao, Aurora, an incident that triggered separate investigations by Ateneo, the UAAP, the PNP-CIDG, the National Bureau of Investigation, and CHED.

CHED had issued Ateneo a show-cause order in June involving, among other matters, compliance with rules governing off-campus activities, its anti-hazing policy, and the university’s responsibility to exercise reasonable supervision over its students. 

According to league sources, however, the UAAP still had not received or relied upon a completed CHED report when it made its announcement Friday.

Instead, the league reached its determination using the information already available to it, including Ateneo’s internal investigation and the findings and referrals made public by government investigating agencies.

Those government proceedings remain separate from the UAAP process. The CIDG recommended Anti-Hazing Act-related charges in connection with the incident, while the NBI referred complaints including reckless imprudence resulting in homicide against Baldwin and several members of the staff to the Department of Justice. The DOJ has been evaluating the referrals. Those proceedings are not findings of criminal guilt.

The UAAP, meanwhile, imposed its own sanctions.

Former Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin was perpetually banned from all UAAP competitions and related activities and prohibited from entering UAAP competition venues. His sanction is final and cannot be appealed.

Former team manager Epok Quimpo and members of the coaching staff were suspended from UAAP participation until further determination by the Board. Those sanctions can be appealed.

One league source explained that Ateneo, as a competing institution, was not found to have violated a specific UAAP competition or eligibility rule that would warrant suspending the school. 

The people sanctioned by the league, meanwhile, were adults whose conduct surrounding the Aurora activity became the subject of the subsequent investigations and criminal referrals.

Previous UAAP suspensions of member schools, such as De La Salle University in 2006 and Adamson University in 1994, followed direct violations involving player eligibility. 

The Aurora case presented the Board with a dramatically different issue: how to impose accountability following the deaths of two student-athletes without extending punishment to teammates whom the league itself considers victims.

Sources said the UAAP was leaning toward allowing Ateneo to compete for much of its deliberation for precisely that reason.

There was concern within the league that suspending Ateneo would impose another consequence on players who had already gone through the trauma of June 8. 

A broader sanction could also affect other Ateneo student-athletes whose scholarships, education and financial support are closely tied to their ability to compete.

The UAAP’s public decision ultimately reflected that thinking. It noted that government investigators had not recommended holding the student-athletes liable and specifically considered their desire to honor Baterbonia and Adili by continuing to play.

As a condition of continued UAAP participation, Ateneo has been ordered to conduct a comprehensive reassessment of the organizational structure and management of the men’s basketball program in relation to the university’s wider athletics operation, with particular emphasis on athlete welfare, protection, accountability, and oversight.

For the players, however, the immediate uncertainty is over.

Sources told ALL-STAR that every member of the Blue Eagles’ men’s team has returned. The players have already participated in several closed-door tune-up games, including upcoming meetings with Letran and University of Perpetual Help System DALTA, and more games against NCAA opposition are being lined up.

Their first scheduled public preseason appearance is expected on August 16, when Ateneo faces Our Lady of Fatima University in the Pinoyliga Big Dance at Blue Eagle Gym.

The return to basketball is only one part of the process.

Players who survived the Aurora incident have undergone mental-health counseling, according to sources, while Ateneo and the UAAP are expected to implement additional safety measures around the team and its activities this season.

Inside Loyola Heights, another question remains: what supporting this particular Ateneo team will look and feel like after everything that has happened.

There is grief that will not disappear when the ball is tipped. There are families still seeking accountability. There are players returning to the court after losing two teammates in circumstances that have become the subject of multiple investigations. And there is a university attempting to rebuild trust around one of its most visible programs.

The basketball operation itself is also being rebuilt.

Nico Salva, a former Ateneo champion, is serving as team manager, with Louie Alas taking over as head coach. Sources told ALL-STAR that the present expectation is for both men to hold those positions for at least the next year.

Neither made significant demands during contract discussions, sources said. Their priority was getting the program and the players back on their feet.

Alas is building a staff around familiar basketball relationships. Former PBA guard RJ Jazul, who played under Alas at Letran and later worked with him in the professional ranks, is expected to be part of the group. So is former PBA star Kerby Raymundo, whose relationship with Alas dates to the Philippine youth team and Letran’s 1998 NCAA championship.

Longtime Ateneo assistant Gene Afable is another veteran presence available to the program. There have also been discussions about bringing former Blue Eagle and current Ateneo high school coach Bacon Austria into the senior team setup.

On the court, Alas is not expected to tear down everything Ateneo previously did. Sources described the approach as preserving useful principles from the previous system while introducing new concepts and giving greater emphasis to defense, an area that has long been a hallmark of Alas-coached teams.

One player whose future generated considerable speculation during Ateneo’s period of uncertainty was Kieffer Alas.

There were rumors that the younger Alas could move to another UAAP program if Ateneo were suspended for Season 89. A source familiar with his thinking told ALL-STAR that transferring to another local school was not his preferred contingency. Had Ateneo been barred from competing, Kieffer was prepared to spend the year training overseas and then return rather than leave Ateneo for a UAAP rival.

That contingency is now unnecessary.

There will also be a quieter reminder of Adili built into Ateneo’s roster construction.

Beginning in Season 89, the UAAP will allow teams to carry as many as two foreign student-athletes in their pool, although only one may be active at a time. Ateneo, sources said, intends to carry only one.

The Blue Eagles plan to leave the additional FSA place unoccupied as a tribute to Divine.

It is a symbolic decision with particular meaning for a program attempting to determine how to compete again without simply moving on from what happened. Divine’s father, Elias Adili, had already publicly encouraged his son’s teammates to continue playing even as he sought answers and accountability over his son’s death.

Now they will.

Ateneo enters Season 89 with its eligibility settled, but not with the Aurora tragedy behind it. Government proceedings continue. CHED’s process remains consequential. The UAAP has demanded institutional changes. The players themselves are still healing.

The Blue Eagles will play basketball again.

The much harder task is determining how to do so in a way that remembers the two teammates who will not be there with them.