12th Annual Philippine Professional Organization (PPO) Basketball Tournament 2015

RIYADH – 12th Annual Philippine Professional Organization Basketball Tournament held its opening on June 12, 2015 at the Basketball Court of Al Yamama Hotel and IECEP-KSA-CRC, being one of the participating organizations, has continuously taken part in the league with its “ELECTRONS” basketball team headed by the Sports Chairman, Engr. Arnold Salcedo and Head Coach, Engr. Rito Banan. Lots of assistance from its sponsors, leaders, and supporting members; namely, Council of Past Presidents (Engr. Mario Balboa, Engr. Catalino Criste, & Engr. Moody Gibas), Pres./Engr. Perry Camson, Engr. Nelson Navarro, other BODs, and supporters, whom without their valued cooperation, this prestigious event will never be a success.

From the start of the elimination round, “TEAM ELECTRONS” suffered its first loss against COMSOFIL (Computer Society of Filipinos). This loss had not created any disappointment to the team. They rather became aggressive and reverted into consecutive wins against other participating teams.

Four teams in chronological order have entered the semi-final rounds; SOFIQS, UAP, COMSOFIL, and IECEP-KSA-CRC. The playoffs will be SOFIQS (Rank 1) vs. IECEP (Rank 4) and UAP (Rank 2) vs. COMSOFIL (Rank 3). Congratulations to the four teams; however, due to venue unavailability, the schedule for the knock-out games has been held until August 21, 2015. Through the initiative of COMSOFIL sports chairman, it was suggested that the schedule should be done early. Being the appointed Interim Head of PPO Technical Committee, Engr. Nelson Navarro managed to get a venue in SEDER Village and the knock-out games were scheduled on August 14, 2015 from 5:00 PM onwards.

COMSOFIL was able to survive with its come-from-behind win against UAP. The excitement continued with the 2nd game between SOFIQS and IECEP-KSA-CRC. The former maneuvered its offensive techniques and won. Therefore, the final playoffs will be COMSOFIL VS. SOFIQS (best-of- three series) and the battle for 3rd place (knock-out game) will be between IECEP-KSACRC and UAP.

Congratulations to our team for entering the battle for 3rd place. The game schedule had been resumed on August 20,21, & 22, 2015 at Al Yamama Hotel Basketball Court. PICPA, under the leadership of its sports chairman, Mr. Danny Tenerife and the PPO Sports Commissioner Engr. Gay Pineda, initiated the required game schedule. Unfortunately, IECEP-KSA-CRC lost the game thereby acquiring the 4th place slot.

Entering the semi-finals is already an amazing achievement of IECEP-KSA-CRC. “TEAM ELECTRONS” did a great performance in every game played. This shows that the desire to be one of the best teams in the 12th Annual PPO Basketball League is still intact and we hope that it will be maintained for the future tournaments.