Pilipinas Basketball was adopted as the new name of the organization that will be presented to the International Basketball Federation (known by its French acronym FIBA) which, if all goes smoothly, the country’s suspension from international basketball competitions will be lifted.

The POC will present the document to the FIBA during its Congress in Saitama, Japan in August where the members will hold its regular general assembly in conjunction with the World Basketball Championship.

Although the POC sees final FIBA approval, that optimism will probably be tempered by the withdrawal of Basketball Association of the Philippines President Joey Lina from the five-man stakeholders group which drafted and approved the new charter.

"It is not true that I agreed with final draft of the constitution," said Lina yesterday who was surprised by reports that he had affixed his approval on the new document.

Lina, who arrived from the Middle East two days ago, said his position remained unchanged and that he will not compromise the dissolution of the BAP which he said "is a 60-year-old institution."

According to Lina, the group was leaning towards retaining the BAP as the name of the organization, this being already recognized by the FIBA.

"They changed the rules when were about to come up with the draft of the amended by-laws of the BAP," said Lina, who came short of saying that even if the POC recognizes Pilipinas Basketball, it won’t be able to sway the FIBA.

"The approach they took is different and I told them (stakeholders) that the most expedient way is go through the BAP which will apply for reinstatement that conforms with the FIBA requirements," he said.

Philippine Basketball League Commissioner Chino Trinidad, one of the stakeholders, confirmed that was the case during the early meetings.

"But we realized that there may be more problems in the future if the BAP was retained as the lead organization, so we adopted Pilipinas Basketball," he said.

Trinidad said that when Lina realized that he could not have his way, he decided not to attend the succeeding meetings.

"But we appreciate his suggestions and recommendations and many of them were incorporated in the new charter," Trinidad said.

Despite the non-participation of Lina, Trinidad said the stakeholders and the POC have agreed to proceed with the presentation with the FIBA.

"One person does not make the whole federation," said Trinidad adding that they will just state their case, present a chronological order of what transpired and was discussed during the meetings and hopefully, "the FIBA will see the sincerity and the desire of the new group to move Philippine basketball forward."

Besides Trinidad, also giving approval to the new document were PBA Commissioner Noli Eala, UAAP representative Junjun Caspitrano and Fr. Vic Calvo of the NCAA.

Including Lina, they were the five stakeholders tasked by FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann to come up with a new organization and set of by-laws to govern Philippine basketball. Baumann set March 30 as deadline for completion of the document.

"They (stakeholders) will be attending the POC Executive Committee meeting tomorrow (today) and a joint statement with the POC will be released," said Mark Joseph, who met with the stakeholders yesterday along with POC legal counsel Ding Tanjuatco to dissect any flaw in the document. They gave it the thumbs up.

The stakeholders are scheduled to meet with the POC executive committee this afternoon at Milky Way in Makati, and, according to an official privy to the talks, they would all express their support to the creation of the new body despite the decision of Lina to distance himself from the pack.

Joseph said a meeting between PBA commissioner Noli Eala and Lina was being scheduled for last night in an eleventh hour effort to iron out the kinks.