MANNY V. PANGILINAN, the business tycoon who gave basketball a much-needed shot in the arm in the last eight years, has stepped down as president of the governing Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas on Thursday.

The 69-year-old, who also owns three teams in the PBA, called for a press conference to announce his decision, choosing to uphold the constitution of the SBP which he helped draft in 2007.

“I told the board that we should respect the rules,” Pangilinan said in his hastily-formed press conference at his PLDT offices in Makati.

“I’m not trying to tinker around with the rules, it’s best that I retire.”

Pangilinan just showed class with what he did, even if he knows full well that there is no better man for the job.

The defunct Basketball Association of the Philippines, which the late Gonzalo Puyat ruled with an iron fist for several years before Graham Lim took over early in the 2000s, never had such a leader as basketball in the country plummeted deep in Asia under their respective tenures.

Pangilinan funded the Gilas Pilipinas program with literally his own money, with the team successful in taking the Philippines back to the World Cup last year after close to 40 years of absence.

Just last week, the Philippines fell just short of playing in the Olympics again after bowing to mighty China in the gold medal match of the Fiba Asia Championship in Changsha, China.

I just hope someone steps up the way Pangilinan did in 2007, and join resources with people who truly love the sport so that the recovery of basketball in the Philippines could be sustained.

Otherwise, if we get leaders who just want the publicity, those who just want to further their respective businesses, or those who really know nothing but act like they know everything, the sport will be plunging into an abyss the country might not be able to come out of next time.

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Speaking of Pangilinan’s commitment to help the sport, the SBP had intimated that the Philippines might not be sending Gilas to the wild card tournament for the last three slots to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Instead of trying to again plead for support from the PBA, the SBP, according to vice-chairman Ricky Vargas — Pangilinan’s most trusted lieutenant — is thinking of just reviving the Cadet program which will have the wild card as its first tournament.

Vargas didn’t mince words in blasting the PBA for SBP’s decision in doing this, saying: “We have never been able to get the help we need from them.”

Usually soft-spoken like Pangilinan himself, Vargas went on: “You can never depend on the help coming from the PBA. Their support has always been volatile. It has been proven.”

Vargas went on to the extent of blasting PBA chairman Robert Non of San Miguel Beer and president and CEO Chito Salud, who on Saturday last week were quoted to be throwing the league’s full support on Gilas Pilipinas for the wild card and future big tournaments.

“How can they even say that, when in reality, it is still the team owners who have the final say,” Vargas asked. “They keep saying full support, when (Salud) cannot even make players who refuse (an invitation to play) play.”

Vargas was obviously referring to the likes of June Mar Fajardo of San Miguel Beer and LA Tenorio of Barangay Ginebra, who opted out because of different reasons.

Paul Lee and Jeff Chan of Rain or Shine didn’t play because the team owners did not release them.

“The problem here is that it is us making things difficult for us to succeed,” Vargas said. “We’ve given it everything for Gilas, and yet, this is what we get.”

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It would be a pity if the Gilas Pilipinas program dies with the departure of MVP and if the country goes back to the old BAP practice of sending half-baked teams to play in international competitions.

It is this corner’s wish that someone again step up to the plate, someone with the same passion as Pangilinan’s who will unite the country for a common cause.

Pangilinan showed his commitment by time and again trying to assemble the best team possible each time by using his same resources.

It is not necessary for the next man in charge to be as rich as MVP, just as influential, who can demand from the basketball stakeholders the logistics and the personnel that the national team needs.

It’s time for the others who have been so outspoken in the past to take the baton and make sure that they will work for flag and country first before anything else.

But just like the normal fan in this basketball-enamored nation, I am wondering who that man will be.