Parks named San Miguel coach

**Admin Magic Man13** Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:50 am

MANILA, Philippines — Officials of San Miguel Beer, the second Philippine team that will play in the ASEAN Basketball League, don’t see any rivalry with the Philippine Patriots when the league's third season unfolds in January.

San Miguel Corporation president and chief executive officer Ramon S. Ang said that while a rivalry with Mikee Romero's Patriots would spike interest in the league, he prefers to have both complement one another in the region's fastest growing cage league.

"Mikee (Romero) is a family to me and we are partners in business," said Ang during Wednesday's press conference at the SMC office in Pasig City. "In fact, he was the one who even invited us to get into this so I see no problem."

Newly-appointed mentor Bobby Parks, who in 1987 led San Miguel Beer to a PBA championship in 1987, shares his boss' sentiments.

"The way I look at it, it's going terradoto open up more jobs for Filipinos and it's going to help both teams to save money since they'll be in a lot of home-and-home games," Parks said.

But ABL chief executive officer Kuhan Foo said that the possible rivalry

between the Beermen and the Patriots would greatly help enhance the image of the league.

"When we started, everyone was saying that (the league) would never take off. Now this all justifies what we we're fighting the past four years," said Foo. "San Miguel coming in is a good step forward and definitely we will see a rivalry between them and the Patriots."

San Miguel will become the seventh team in the league. Foo and SEABA president Erick Thohir bared that they're in talks with a second team from Thailand and a squad from Vietnam in the hope of expanding the field to eight.

The addition of San Miguel is expected to raise the league's profile aside from other companies such as AirAsia of Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes and Romero's Harbour Centre.

"The reason why we joined the ABL is because the league is becoming famous in the region and SMB is being marketed in the region. I think it's a good venue for us to promote our products," said Ang.

Jonas Terrado, Manila Bulletin