From getting landmark PSC ruling to seeing ROS improve, Yeng Guiao happy for fruitful 2025

What a year it has been for coach Yeng Guiao. PBA Images (file photo)

By Ivan Saldajeno

MANILA--Although he did not exactly get his happily ever after ending, Rain Or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao is still glad that the year 2025 has been a good one for him.

Firstly, Guiao is happy that his team, boasting a lineup made up of Gen Z players, is now showing signs of maturity in the PBA ranks.

"We're improving as a team," Guiao said.

"Our young players are getting more mature."

Unfortunately, his statement about his team's maturity came in an ironic moment right on Guiao's final sports-related activity for the year: a loss to Meralco in their knockout PBA Philippine Cup quarterfinal game on Monday night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.

Already known for having long post-game huddles after a defeat, the Elasto Painters' Monday night debriefing was no exception, and for Guiao, it is an opportunity for them to quickly reflect on how they blew being the second seed with a twice-to-beat advantage and missed the semifinals for the first time since Season 48.

"Experiences like this will enrich them. Kaya nagtagal kami sa dressing room, sinasabi ko na i-process natin ito nang mabuti at hindi namin makalimutan yung mga lessons. Kasi kung hindi mo ipro-process after this, parang wala lang nangyari or hindi mo siya binigyan ng importansya. You really will not absorb the lessons," Guiao further said.

Regardless of what would have happened to ROS in the quarterfinals, though, Guiao's biggest win for 2025 remains the affirmation of a landmark ruling requiring PAGCOR and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office to give 5 percent of their respective gross incomes to the Philippine Sports Commission.

The Supreme Court denied PAGCOR and PCSO's appeals earlier this month, making the initial decision final and executory.

"May naipanalo tayo sa Supreme Court, which is good for sports in general," said Guiao, who pushed for the strict enforcement of the PAGCOR-PCSO clause of Republic Act 6847 when he was still a congressman in 2016.

In a Dec. 5 press conference, hours after he notified PSC chairman Pato Gregorio of the good news, Guiao said that the Philippine sports community should have a merry Christmas season.

"We did this for the Filipino athletes at sa mga kababayan natin," Guiao said in the media conference, where he was also joined by Gregorio and Philippine Football Federation president John Gutierrez, during the semifinals of the FIFA Futsal Women's World Cup at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.

Guiao thought the legal battle was won in eight years after the Supreme Court first ruled in his favor on Aug. 22, 2024.

However, both PAGCOR and PCSO questioned why Guiao went straight to the Supreme Court when a possibility of the case being settled at a lower court exists, delaying the supposed start of the corrected reimbursement by another year.

The Supreme Court, though, said in its final decision that it can intervene in various situations, and the case of Guiao is not an exception to this.

"Syempre excited kami kasi it's a long, hard struggle," he further said.

"It's a victory for Philippine sports. It's just doing justice to Philippine sports in general."

The coming year will begin a 10-year period where both PAGCOR and PCSO are to pay their backlogs to the PSC dating back to 1993, as mandated by the Supreme Court.

The year 2026, too, could be the year that PBA fans will see more glimpses of ROS being a team of the future.

And both of them can be attributed to the superb leadership of Guiao.