Happy Birthday, Filomeno (Pilo) Pumaren, Jr. ( June 27 )

Filomeno “Pilo” Pumaren, Jr.
Gilbey’s Gin pioneer head coach 
NCC Training Team assistant coach
6x PBA champion as assistant coach
1981 SEAG gold medalist
1957-58 UAAP champion as player
3x UAAP champion coach 
UE Red Warriors head coach from 1972-1978

In a now familiar sob story, Pumaren, a protege of Coach Baby Dalupan, related how right from its inception the Gillbey's team seemed doomed to spend the whole of its first outing in the PBA playing doormat to every team in the league. In sum, Pumaren, who in 1974 and 1975 coached the UE Warriors to back-to-back UAAP championships, said that if as shown by the Gins' performance in the first round Gilbey's wasn't able to build a competitive team, don't be quick to knock him or management. They tried, he said, to get good players. But there were not that many available, and if there were some, later developments showed they were still tied up to their old ballclubs. So what happened was that just to get started in the PBA Gilbey's was left with no choice but to put up a team made up of discards, near-wishouts and rank newcomers to pro basketball, if not refugees from a car accident. Earlier, to the criticism that Gilbey's was unable to form a cracker-jack-line up because it was scrimping on its budget, a team official had blurted in an aggrieved baritone: "It's not that we can't spend We'd like to, but we can't."