By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) All-Star festivities are set to return this upcoming March 2023 and will be taking place in Passi City, Iloilo.
PBA Commissioner Willie Marcial announced the recent development and said that the proposed scheduled dates for the prestigious event will be between March 8 and March 15, 2023.
The PBA fans are now longing for the comeback of the league’s annual All-Star event which is yet to be televised again since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marcial and the rest of the PBA board last conducted the All-Star celebration in 2019 where Japeth Aguilar and Arwind Santos shared the award for the Most Valuable Player (MVP).
The 2020 PBA All-Star event was supposed to happen in Passi City. Now that everything is slowly getting back to normal just like pre-COVID, the 4th class component city in the Province of Iloilo will be given a chance to finally host the festivities.
Passi City is no stranger to huge basketball events and has already hosted some PBA and MPBL home-and-away games.
Aside from the professional hoops leagues, Passi City was also the recent venue where the University of the Philippines (UP) Fighting Maroons and Iloilo City-based basketball club Elite Lab battled as a part of their Western Visayas leg visit.
“It will happen at the tailend of the 2022–2023 PBA Governors’ Cup elimination round. We are still finalizing the dates, but it will be between March 8 to 15,” said Marcial.
The PBA board and the acting committee are yet to release the full All-Star activities that will dazzle the thousands of Ilonggo fans attending the venue.