Palusot For the event, PLDT tapped East-West Private Holdings to once again work on bringing NBA stars to the Philippines. The Cincinnati-based company was the same firm that worked with the MVP Group of Companies, which includes PLDT, to bring basketball stars led by Kobe Bryant for a well-received pair of exhibition games in 2011 during the NBA lockout. But with the lockout resolved and the NBA in swing this year, East-West had to secure a permit from the league to allow the players to see action in any exhibition game. East-West said it made a request last April. The NBA denied the move. But even though an actual exhibition game was out of the question, that didnt stop organizers from trying to make it happen. East-West set up the two-night event to be a basketball clinic, at the end of which would be a five-on-five scrimmage between the NBA stars and Gilas players. PLDT fell in line with this, with Fermin himself noting in the aftermath of the fiasco that the company never advertised that there would be a game. We never said in our print ads that there was a game. We said it would be a charity event, Fermin was quoted in a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 08:03:32 +0000