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| The stage is set for the SLA Inter-Agency Secretary's Cup. Ivan Saldajeno |
TAGUIG—Sinag Liga Asya is helping the Department of Justice revive an old recreational league for agencies under the said cabinet department.
SLA and DOJ formally launched the SLA Inter-Agency Secretary's Cup with opening night scheduled on Saturday at the FilOil EcoOil Centre in San Juan City.
Nine teams representing bureaus under the DOJ's jurisdiction will face off in the said tournament.
According to Assistant Secretary Mico Clavano, a similar intra-DOJ event last happened during the mid-2010s with a different organizing team.
“We are very excited to be here lalo na po ang DOJ ang unang napili ng SLA to be a participant in the inter-agency basketball tournament,” Clavano said during the press launch on Thursday at the Izakaya Geronimo Restaurant here.
“We hope this league will bring us closer together dahil sa isang department kailangan po talaga na iyong camaraderie between the agencies is very strong, for us to be an efficient and effective department. Kaya nagpapasalamat po talaga kami sa Sinag Liga Asya dahil pinili nila kami sa chance na makapaglaro at maipakita din iyong skills. We are very happy and very blessed na nandito po tayo lahat and we are very excited for this tournament to finally get it kick-started.”
The Secretary's Cup is open to agency employees aged 28 and above and who have been working in their respective agencies for at least six months.
According to SLA chief operations officer Leo Isaac, ballers who have retired from professional basketball to move on to judiciary work are allowed to play as long as they have been out of the league they last played in for at least five years.
Teams will play in a single round-robin classification phase with the top two teams getting outright berths in the single round-robin semifinals.
The other seven teams will dispute the last two semifinal seats in a stepladder playoff format.
The two teams at the bottom of the standings will collide in a knockout game for the eighth seed.
The winner will then join the fifth, sixth, and seventh seeds in the first phase of the quarterfinals will the fifth and sixth seeds earning twice-to-beat advantages.
The survivors of the first phase will play the third and fourth seeds in the next playoff phase, with the higher seeds also having twice-to-beat advantages.
The top two teams after the round-robin semis will collide in one last showdown for the championship.
Doubleheaders will be played on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
The weekday games will start at 6 p.m., and the weekend matches will begin at 5 p.m.
According to Isaac, teams playing in the first game of a weekday schedule have discretion on their call time to arrive at the arena since government employees have to work until 5 p.m.
SLA chairman Rocky Chan, though, added that the league can also adjust its schedule if needed.
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