Joseller “Yeng” Guiao has been a head coach in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) since 1990, or for a total of 33 seasons, interrupted only by a three-year stint from 1997 to 1999 when he became commissioner of the Philippine Basketball League.

The son of former Pampanga governor, the late Bren Guiao, Yeng has been head coach for Sarsi, which later on would become Swift, Pepsi, which later on became Mobiline, Red Bull, Burger King/Air21 then Rain or Shine and NLEX before returning to the Elasto Painters’ fold — a post he has held on to for the last four seasons.

In between, Guiao has had two stints as well as head coach of Gilas Pilipinas and has dabbled in politics, starting as a board member in his home province of Pampanga before later on becoming vice governor and congressman of the first district.

Yup, he was able to successfully juggle his coaching and political duties.

Guiao has also produced six Most Improved Players in the PBA, four Rookies of the Year, two Most Valuable Players and eight Best Imports.

He’s a seven-time PBA All-Star head coach and is a two-time PBA Press Corps Coach of the Year winner.

He’s one of seven coaches in the PBA’s 50-year history to have won at least seven championships and also one of seven to have done it with three different franchises.

But as it turns out, Guiao’s biggest legacy in sports isn’t those championships he’s won or those players he has produced.

Rather, it is the 10-year virtually solo battle he began while still a lawmaker in 2016 when he wanted the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office to remit in full what was due to the Philippine Sports Commission based on Republic Act 6487 — five percent of PAGCOR’s gross annual income from 1993 to the present and 30 percent of PCSO’s charity fund of the proceeds of six sweepstakes and lottery draws per year from 2006 to the present.

PAGCOR had argued that the PSC is not entitled to the full five percent as it is still subject to deductions for certain payments while the PCSO claimed that the PSC’s allocations should only be sourced from the sweepstakes draws and not from lotto games.

In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled 15-0 in favor of Guiao’s petition.

It took a while for money to trickle into the PSC’s coffers for its sports programs for athletes, but last January, the PSC’s budget had already ballooned from around P190 million to more than P500M a month and since the ruling was retroactive, more than P30 billion is still due to the PSC.

Indeed, it was a giant victory for Philippine sports!

For his virtual one-man legal battle for what he believed was right, Guiao will deservingly be feted in the Annual Philippine Sportswriters Association Awards Night with the President’s Award this coming 16 February at the Diamond Hotel. He will be the first non-athlete in PSA Awards Night history to receive the honor.

Every national athlete from hereon will benefit from this in their bid to improve and develop their talents for international sports competitions — and they can only have Guiao to thank for.

Therefore, it should not only be the PSA giving Guiao recognition but the athletes themselves. Maybe also their parents and coaches. And maybe even Philippine sports in general.