• BORBORAN FINALLY LANDS AT MERALCO

Published on October 6, 2011

He hasn’t been given a bulk of the minutes, but once he sets foot on the floor, he almost always
delivers.

That quite sums up the PBA life so far of Mark Borboran, the 6th overall pick of Air21 in the 2008
PBA Draft who has spent the last three years coming off the bench for coach Tim Cone at the Alaska
Aces camp.

Borboran, a wiry 6-4 forward, has given everyone a glimpse of what he can do and teams have taken
notice. The past week, he was the subject of a tug-of-war between reigning Governors’ Cup champion
Petron Blaze and Meralco.

And in the end, the Bolts eventually cornered Borboran.

Borboran’s contract with Alaska expired on August 31, 2011, but under PBA rules, the Aces still
retain the right of first refusal over the player for the next year.

The Aces then traded Borboran to Meralco for a 2014 second round draft pick, but the papers were
returned by PBA commissioner Chito Salud, who asked the two camps to revise the deal. A 2013 second
round draft pick was added by Meralco to the trade and the new deal was OK’d by Salud.

However, Borboran signed an offer sheet from Petron Blaze, which will give him P275,000 a month on
the first year, P300,000 on the second and P350,000 on the third.

After the trade was approved on October 4, Meralco was given five days to match the Boosters’
offer. But on the next day, the Bolts sent notice that they were matching Petron’s offer to
Borboran.

This late development paves the way for Borboran to suit up for Meralco in its game against Talk n
Text Friday, as the Bolts placed him on their active roster in lieu of Yousif Aljamal, who was
relegated to unrestricted free agent status.