TAIPEI: Gilas Pilipinas vs. Chinese Taipei — at least the last two acts of this emotional rivalry — hasn’t been kind to the home team at all.

Terrence Romeo and Calvin Abueva, national team rookies both, on Sunday night stung the Taiwanese in the fourth quarter and saved the Filipinos from another collapse as a 77-69 win gave Gilas an impressive start in the 37th Jones Cup championship here.

The duo combined for 14 of the Filipinos’ 23 points in the payoff frame and keyed a swashbuckling finish by Gilas, which avenged a similarly deflating defeat at the hands of the Taiwanese in the Fiba-Asia Championship held in Manila two years ago.

Romeo scored on a number of eye-popping moves, while Abueva hustled his way to 15 total points – six of them coming in the fourth – while helping the Philippines establish its character underneath despite his small size and even without Andray Blatche.

Blatche, the Philippines’ naturalized player, flew back to the United States on Saturday morning from here to attend the funeral of a departed uncle.

But even that hole created by his absence wasn’t enough to discourage the Filipinos, who fought it out tooth-and-nail in front of a very raucous hometown crowd at the Xinchuang gymnasium here.

The victory enabled the Filipinos to get back at the Taiwanese, who dealt them an 84-79 defeat in Manila just when Team Philippines looked ready to wrap up that preliminary round game at Mall of Asia Arena with a 13-point lead going into the last four minutes.

And on Sunday night, after the Philippines lost a 47-31 lead by scoring just seven points in the third period to enter the fourth tied at 54, the Filipinos looked like they were ready for another fold-up until Romeo and Abueva came up with their brilliance.

Though ego-boosting as it is, national coach Tab Baldwin refused to be drowned in the moment.

“I don’t really want to get carried away with this win. We worked hard to win it, but there are many things to work on,” Baldwin said. “The big thing for me, in terms of the win, is that the fans here and back home (in the Philippines) will enjoy it.

“There will be millions of fans who will be happy with this win.”

Romeo came off the bench and sparked the Gilas offense in the first half, as the Filipinos took that 16-point lead into the third only to lapse into a series of errors and fail to find the mark offensively.

The Filipinos went scoreless in the final 5:04 of the third and were lucky to just fall into a tie after three quarters.

Baldwin went to the second quarter combination that had Romeo and Abueva and together with Jason Castro, the Philippines had a quick-footed five on the floor that proved key in the end.

Castro also scored six points in the final frame and finished with 16, finishing as one of three Filipinos in twin digits with Romeo leading the way with 18 and Abueva shooting 15.

Naturalized player Quincy Davis III, who rued having to battle Asi Taulava and Moala Tautuaa underneath in the absence of Blatche, scored 12 points like shooting guard Chen Shih-Nien to pace the Taiwanese.

Six-foot-10 center Tseng Wen-Ting, the veteran of many international wars, fired 11 points and had seven rebounds, but missed three straight crucial free throws inside the last 3:33 to help doom the home team.

Next up for the Philippines is the national team of South Korea at 5 p.m. on Monday.

The Koreans, the defending champions here and the reigning Asian Games gold medal winners, have gone to a 0-2 start after taking an 86-84 loss at the hands of Spartak Primorye of Russia earlier in the day.

Spartak remained tied for the lead with rock-solid Iran, which tore Chinese Taipei-B to shreds 88-66, for 2-0.