The PBA’s 50th Season Commissioners Cup is on its Finals. As a long-time Jaworski fan (since birth), I am rooting for Ginebra San Miguel even if I have so many friends at PLDT who owns Talk and Text Tropang 5G.
Loyalty means a lot to me. I really do not know why Rico Mairhoffer, who once played for GSM, went for Rain Or Shine. Oh yes, his reason was that he wanted an independent team to win. That’s loyalty down the drain.
The PBA has, for the record, gave its very first Rookie of the Year Award in 1976 to Virgilio “Gil Cortez”, a 6 foot 4 good-looking forward.
He is one sports personality I know who is really a very fine gentleman. He just goes about doing his thing – sharing and contributing to sports, particularly basketball, sans fanfare.
Prior to joining the PBA, he also played in MICAA and donned the Philippine colors in Pesta Sukan and ABC Championship (that’s FIBA Asia predecessor).
Gil Cortez is a Cabalen who gave rise to Kapampangan’s pride of being recognized as source of excellent basketball players. That plum given him in 1976 was followed by recognition of fellow Cabalens who eventually became ROY recipients too. These are Jimmy Taguines in 1977 and Jimmy Manansala in 1978. That’s three consecutive years for Pampanga ballers that was started by Kong Gil who made an impressive debut for the Toyota Super Corollas back in the day. Three consecutive ROYs for Kapampangans can be equated to JunMar Fajardo’s 9 MVP awards. Today, there are many excellent Cabalens who play in the PBA – Japeth Aguilar, Jayson Castro, Stephen Holt, Calvin Abueva, Ian Sanggalang, Justin Baltazar, to name a few.
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Kong Gil is still grinding it out developing players who aspire to become basketball greats. His good deeds transcend his good looks.
Suffice it to say that he has had a hand in the development of many successful players in the PBA. One of them is Jayson Castro who is known to be one of Asia’s best point guards. “The Blur” in his amateur days in the Philippine Basketball League played for Harbour Center which was managed by Cortez. It was here where Castro honed up his point guarding skills even if was a mere back up to LA Tenorio then.
Even as Castro won an MVP award and two championships with the Harbour Center, Cortez did not rest on his laurels. He went on to help out and develop aspiring basketball professionals.
He is still into organizing provincial and regional basketball leagues like the United Central Luzon Athletic Association. This is the very league where the likes of muscleman Vic Manuel and Chris Exciminiano had a stint in their development years. And talk about player development, Cortez had a hand also in the games of the Trillo brothers and Jayson Webb who were his wards in their playing days at La Salle. The latest most successful probably among current PBA players he had help is the burly Dave Marcelo who was part of the Ginebra champion team of 2016 and two other championships tucked in his belt.
He is also into Gilas Pilipinas Youth Boys tryouts with his role as Director for Zone 3 of Samahang Basketbol Ng Pilipinas (SBP). Oh by the way, he also has in mind and heart the coaches. Very recently, he was involved in Coaches Academy organized by SBP. Mind you, he is also into professional volleyball where he had managed the Balipure Water Defenders.
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In the late 1990s, Cortez also handled the Pampanga Dragons in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association where the team emerged as its first champions in 1998 with former San Fernando Councilor and PBA MVP Ato Agustin as point guard.
He was also into sports facilities management with his stint as head of the Pampanga Sports Complex in the City of San Fernando. This was a gargantuan task of overseeing the athletic field and oval, the convention center and other sports facilities as Pampanga’s Sports Director, a position entrusted to him by late former Governor Bren Z. Guiao.
In one of his socmed posts after being featured in Sports Lang FB page, he wrote “Proud Kapampangan Moment” as he enthused being proud to share the coveted ROY award with Taguines and Manansala who followed his footsteps.
The thing now, is Pampanga also proud of him as one of its sons who has given the province honor and pride? I am just saddened to learn that Kong Gil has not been given the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Award or MOKA yet. For the province’s son to still be doing his share, contributing and developing players, perhaps it is about time for him to be given that recognition. He deserves it and it is long overdue.
Pampanga has one son who truly deserves that recognition.
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FREELANCERS TOOL. GCash took to Pampanga its campaign for the freelance community. It is not just a campaign. It is their way of helping out internet-based entrepreneurs. Yes folks, there is a growing market for freelancers doing many internet-based activities. Be it accounting, graphics design, architecture and civil engineering, social media management. And yes, even those in AI-powered trade and commerce. They call them VAs or Virtual Assistants.
What makes it a beauty for freelancers in Pampanga and Central Luzon is the flexibility of the Gcash app where dollar payments (salaries, contractual obligations etc) can be had by VAs in US dollars.
Launched in 4Q of last year, this particular feature of GCash is aimed at helping freelancers grow their businesses by providing easier access to global earnings while avoiding hidden fees and surcharges often associated with international money transfers.
GCash Virtual US Account enables freelance workers to receive payments from U.S.-based clients and reduce delays commonly experienced through traditional banking channels where international transfers can take one to three business days. GCash users can also send and receive U.S. dollars through the platform. How convenient, right?
As a regular attendee myself to the periodic Financial and Operations Report of PLDT where I would hear PLDT Chairman Manny Pangilinan of his praises for GCash. Now, this is one more innovation where I am sure would make people at Maya tweak their offerings even more in order to catch up.
At the Freelance event in Clark last Monday, GCash was able to gather more than 20 freelancers who run various web-based business support as VAs. With a facility like this one, we foresee more freelancers in Pampanga in the future.
The post Scoring, Winning first appeared on Pampanga News Now.