Baculi: Residency rule to protect UAAP

MANILA, Philippines – The UAAP is defending a new league rule that will require high school transferees to undergo a 2-year residency period before becoming eligible to play in the league.

UAAP secretary general Junel Baculi said the new residency policy was unanimously approved by the UAAP board.

“It was deliberated upon by the UAAP board, it was unanimously approved and voted upon,” said Baculi in an interview with ANC’s Hardball.

“With the member-schools of the UAAP, it's now 2 years instead of 1. But we still polish the implementing guidelines so to speak. But in concept, in principle it was unanimously approved by the board.”

Baculi said the league amended the residency rule to protect the interest of the member-universities and the league as a whole.

The 2-year residency policy will be beneficial to UAAP-member schools that want to retain their best players from the high school ranks.

However, it will also detrimental to the recruitment programs of the other teams.

“I will be frank, but we don't want the member-schools to pirate the so-to-speak homegrown talent because it would be detrimental to the league,” said Baculi.

The policy, which will take effect in the coming 76th UAAP season, will affect the players’ preference of schools they want to play for. 

But Baculi asserted that the new rule doesn’t violate a player’s right to quality education.

“We took that into consideration,” said the UAAP official. “We're not depriving any individual of their right to school or the right to education.”

"Playing is not a right but a privilege for every individual… so you can study first for two years then play for the rest of the rest if you're playing for another university," said Baculi.

"You can study for two years and play for 5 years if you want to."