Andres "Chito" Yuseco Narvasa, Jr. (born October 18, 1956) is a Filipino business executive and former basketball player and coach. He is best known as the ninth commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association.
Personal life
He is the son of Andres Narvasa, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and Janina Yuseco. He is also the brother of former MBA and PBL commissioner Ogie Narvasa.
Basketball
Narvasa, along with his brother, Ogie, played for the Ateneo Blue Eagles. The Narvasa brothers were also part of the Philippine national teams of 1977 and 1978. They jointly coached the Blue Eagles from the early to late 1980s.
Narvasa coached the Shell and Purefoods franchises in the PBA from 1995 to 1998. He was also the president of the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines (BCAP).
PBA Commissioner
On May 14, 2015, Narvasa was appointed as the ninth league commissioner via a unanimous 12–0 vote by the PBA Board of Governors. He took the post vacated by Chito Salud, who would serve as the first PBA president and chief executive officer (CEO). He officially took over from Salud on August 1, in time for the Rookie Draft of the 2015–16 PBA season.
On March 7, 2016, Narvasa was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the PBA, replacing officer-in-charge Robert Non, which gave Narvasa a dual role as the CEO and commissioner of the league. However, CEO position was dissolved before the start of the 2016 Governors' Cup.
Notable changes and events
Narvasa's first order of business as commissioner was to look into league's officiating, which has been a source of controversy in the past years. Hours before the 2015 draft, he issued an order to teams disallowing trading of players and draft picks during draft day, but would be done in the next few days after the draft. Before the start of the 2015–16 PBA season, he introduced some changes in officiating, particularly on deliberate fouls, as well as adapting the referee substitution rule and FIBA's rule of 14-second shot clock reset after offensive boards.
During his tenure, the PBA broke its game attendance records for a finals game. Games five, six and seven of the 2017 Governors' Cup Finals between Barangay Ginebra San Miguel and the Meralco Bolts were all held at the Philippine Arena. On October 22, 2017, Game 5 set the all-time PBA finals attendance record of 36,445, breaking the previous record of 23,436 fans during Game 3 of the 2013 Commissioner's Cup between Alaska and Barangay Ginebra. The Game 5 record was later broken three days later on October 25 as 53,642 fans watched Game 6 of the Governors' Cup Finals. The record also broke the all-time PBA attendance record of 52,612, set during the opening of the 2014–15 season on October 19, 2014. The record was surpassed on October 27, 2017, during Game 7 of the Governors' Cup finals as 54,086 fans watched the series-clinching game between Barangay Ginebra and Meralco.
Controversies
Narvasa has been the center of numerous controversies since the start of his tenure as commissioner.
He handed an indefinite ban on SPIN.ph beat reporter Snow Badua after the latter wrote an article and posted Twitter tweets accusing Barangay Ginebra San Miguel team governor and close friend Alfrancis Chua for having an extramarital affair with model Abby Poblador. In his letter to Badua, “It has come to my attention that you had used different media platforms to malign, embarrass and mortify a person of authority of this association. Your incessant attacks on Twitter on Mr. Alfrancis Chua, team governor of Ginebra San Miguel, has caused distress, embarrassment and disharmony with his family”. His ban on Badua angered many journalists, accusing him as violating press freedom using his power as commissioner.
In November 2015, when asked by reporters about Mahindra Enforcers playing-coach Manny Pacquiao's no-show during the Alaska-Mahindra overseas game in Dubai, he quoted as saying that Pacquiao was feeling under the weather, has had prior engagements, and that he is not a basketball player but a boxer, yet he still acknowledged Pacquiao's value to the league as a sports personality who can draw crowds to the game. Such comments he gave to Dubai-based Gulf News angered Mahindra team consultant Joe Lipa, who defended Pacquiao and accused Narvasa's remarks as degrading and uncalled for. Narvasa made a mandatory summon over Lipa's remarks, but Lipa did not honor it. As a consequence, he suspended Lipa from attending Mahindra games.