In response to the call made by Commissioner Renauld “Sonny” Barrios, PBA head coaches gave their players free passes for four straight days starting Monday, allowing them to join national mentor Yeng Guiao in practice to prepare for the RP-Australia Goodwill Games on April 3 and 5 at the Araneta Coliseum.

Except for Burger King guard Cyrus Baguio, who attended the burial of his late grandmother, Guiao had a full complement of 13 players at The New Arena in San Juan, and he set the tone for Powerade Team Pilipinas with an emotional pre-practice speech before plunging into protracted drills from six to nine in the evening.

“As national players, you’re not only promoting the country but your careers as well,” Guiao said. “And when you do that, you also promote your fellow players and the PBA as a whole.”

Guiao, who expressed gratitude for the mother ballclubs’ support, urged his team to feel the “passion” and the “excitement” of the coming series with the Motolite-Australia Great White Sharks.

“You only get these feelings, the motivation, when there’s competition coming,” he said. “This is how we want it to be as often as we can. But there are very limited opportunities and so we really try to make advantage when they come along.”

With at least seven players over 6-foot-6, the Australians, Guiao believes, will provide the nationals a better understanding of how to deal with bigger opponents.

“We will know how we fare against size,” he said. “That has always been a problem for the Philippine team. Now we’ll find out if this one is good enough to play a big team.”

Noted for his run-and-gun philosophy in the pros, Guiao says he intends to “compensate” for his team’s lack of height with their “athletic” ability.

“Can this team counter size? We’ll see,” he said. “This is important, not just in the Australian series, but when the real tournaments come along, like the Jones Cup and the FIBA Asia.”

The next couple of days, Guiao says, will be devoted to “ingraining” and “mentally tuning” the players to the kind of system they will employ in international competition.

“They’re coming in from different systems and we’ll try to disengage them from that for them to be able to absorb what we’ll use, at least for the next four days,” Guiao said.

Present were Asi Taulava, Jayjay Helterbrand, Mick Pennisi, Kerby Raymundo, James Yap, Arwind Santos, Gabe Norwood, Sonny Thoss, Willie Miller, Kelly Williams, Ryan Reyes, Ranidel de Ocampo and Jared Dillinger.