In Monday’s governors meeting at the PBA office, two recommendations for goal-setting measures – one endorsed by board chairman Buddy Encarnado, the other by Commissioner Noli Eala – were approved for implementation.

The Encarnado plan calls for a Feb. 9 and 10 "directional meeting" at the Club Morocco in Subic where a facilitator will be invited to introduce "specific objectives and review the league’s vision-mission."

Eala bared the program in an impromptu press conference yesterday at the Araneta Coliseum where he was holding talks with people from the Big Dome and ABC-5, the PBA’s newly-designated TV coveror.

"Everybody’s excited about it," said Eala. "The chairman (Encarnado) wants it to be a team-building affair that would foster

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camaraderie among the governors."

Immediately at the close of the governors’ Subic sojourn, the PBA will corral the league’s players – all 170 to 180 of them, said Eala – and herd them into a hotel ballroom huge and comfortable enough to accommodate a day-long orientation seminar-workshop.

"All the league’s programs will be discussed with the players, including the various surveys taken on the PBA, a better appreciation of the Filipino culture, their responsibilities as professional athletes, their marketing potential, and how to project themselves to the media and the public," said Eala.

Six to eight speakers will be given specific topics for extensive deliberation and attendance is mandatory for the players of each ball club.

Also approved by the board, along with Eala’s entire marketing program and the return to Mindanao for provincial games set in General Santos, Zamboanga and Davao after years of staying away for "security reasons," is whatever action the Commissioner’s Office would take in "going after past accounts" owed the league "in the most fastidious manner."

Eala clarified, however, that though the board has given them the "go signal to institute legal action" against Viva Enterprises, Viva-Vintage, the NBN-IBC consortium and Manila Bank, their next course of action would be more reconciliatory.

"We don’t want to be dragged into a long, legal battle as long as we are able to collect, kahit paunti-unti, in whatever form – equipment, services…"