Alas women’s PVL draft entry mulled

Alas Pilipinas women spikers during the 33rd Southeast Asian Games.

POC Media Bureau

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) and Premier Volleyball League (PVL) are entertaining the possibility of allowing Alas Pilipinas women to join the pro league’s rookie draft later this year to enable the national team to have its own pool.

This way, Alas will not need to rely too much from the pros.

The setup will also allow Alas coach Tai Bundit to select from the new batch of neophytes and form its own pool that would exclusively focus on national team duties for two years with their salaries being paid directly by the PNVF.

“Let’s say Alas picked 12 out of the 40 draft applicants. PVL teams can start drafting with that 28 remaining players with the 12 chosen being now members of the national team and cannot be signed by any club teams,” said PNVF chief Tonyboy Laio during Tuesday’s media briefer at their office in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

Also gracing the event were PNVF vice president Yul Benosa, secretary-general Otie Camangian, and board members Fr. Vic Calvo, OP, and Sherwin Maganda.

Liao stressed that he has talked to the majority teams in the PVL and should get the nod of the rest.

“I’ve already talked to six of the 10 PVL teams. With the other four, I have yet to talk to. But I think they’ll follow for the good of the PVL and the national team,” he said.

If it ends up given the green light, the current Alas pool will play its last tournaments in the AVC Women’s Cup set June 6-14 in Candon, Ilocos Sur and the Southeast Asian V-League, which has no specific date and venue yet.

“This will be the last time the PVL players will play for the Philippine team, unless of course PVL players who didn’t renew decide to suit up for Alas,” said Liao.