As someone who has been overly obsessed with the game of basketball for the past decade, an idea suddenly hit my head the other day about the sport I’ve endlessly supported.
Why has there been a long lasting women’s basketball league in the Philippines?
I mean, Filipinos treat the sport like a religion anyway, so why isn’t there a league that caters female hoopers?
PBA in Its 50th Year, Still No WPBA
The Philippine Basketball Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this 2025. Having the title of the second oldest basketball league in the world, behind the NBA, as well as being the first pay-to-play league in Asia.
That begs the question, though, after 5 decades of existence, why has there been no creation of the Women’s Philippine Basketball Association?
I found out that during the late 1990’s there was an idea to develop the Women’s Philippine Basketball League, a.k.a. WPBL. It did exist, but to my end, I can’t see any detailed news stories about it. Some links aren’t working anymore.
Even the link to their website isn’t functioning anymore; luckily, Google was still able to show what the logo of this league looked like.
According to Charmie Lising, in her story from ESPN Philippines, the WPBL ran from 1998 to 1999 and was labeled as a semi-pro league. It returned for one season in the year 2008 before it ultimately closed again.
I was also able to find 2 stories about its 2008 revival. One is from GMA that discussed the potential of expanding the league from 11 teams to 12. And the other is from PhilStar telling that a team named “Mail and More” announces that it is going to join the league.
To my surprise, the expansion of the league was announced by the Commissioner of PBL, the late Chino Trinidad, who is also known as a veteran sports insider in the country.
It appears that the teams that have participated are all partnerships between corporate sponsors and women’s college teams. These were: Muscletape-Lyceum, Pharex-College of St. Benilde, Smart Sports-University of the Philippines, Nutri-C-Ateneo de Manila, Sunkist-La Salle, Bacchus Energy Drink, Oracle Residences, and the 1999 champion, Ever Billena.
But despite this courageous launch in hopes of having a home for female basketball players, it still wasn’t enough. Not even the big-time boss, Manny V. Pangilinan, who owned Smart Sports-UP, could sustain the league as well as Chito Narvasa’s Muscletape-Lyceum.
Chito Narvasa later became the PBA’s Commissioner from 2015 to 2017.
So we still go back to the question, why were there no plans of making a WPBA, considering that the WPBL failed twice in their attempts?
Is it because Filipinos naturally prefer to watch male-dominated roles, and if ever the role gets switched, then it wouldn’t have the same “hype” to fan bases?
If that’s the case, then one may also argue that men’s volleyball “doesn’t feel right” to watch, considering it is a female-dominated sport.
Or maybe the answer to this question is a lot simpler than what we are expecting.
There are just not enough businessmen who are willing to invest in female basketball. The financial side of things became the major factor on why the WPBL didn’t accomplish its dream despite having such a promising reason on why it was made in the first place.
A New Hope Rises in WNBL
After more than a decade, there was another attempt to build a league that could showcase the talents of Filipinas in the game of basketball.
The Women’s National Basketball League shouldered the mission that the WPBL couldn’t accomplish.
And who would’ve thought that this league, after their inaugural season in 2019, got the license to be a professional league granted by the Games and Amusement Board (GAB) way back in August 2020. But there’s a major twist: they couldn’t begin a formal season because of the pandemic.
It took almost a year until we first heard the buzzer for WNBL, and on December 5 2021, the Parañaque Lady Aces won the championship against Taguig in Game 2 of the Finals, sweeping the Best-of-3 series, two games to nothing.
AJ Gloriani was announced as the Finals MVP with Allaina Lim as the regular season Most Valuable Player awardee.
Yet the problem begins to reappear. After their 2022 season, the WNBL stopped and slowly faded away. Their last champions were the Philippine Army Lady Battalion.
There was no clear or official announcement as to why there would be no more WNBL come 2023.
Collegiate Hoops: Top Tier Hoops
It appears that the only thing that can uplift female basketball is the UAAP.
In search of enlightenment, I was able to stumble upon an article written by Normie Riego of ESPN Philippines stating that the UAAP women’s basketball game last November 18 2023 between UST Tigresses versus Ateneo Blue Eagles was already a full house despite the match being set for 9:00 AM.
And in her own words, “Of course, there wouldn’t be interest for women’s basketball if the talent isn’t there in the first place. And safe to say, the tournament is the most competitive it has been in recent memory.”
WMPBL: The Last Hope?
Way backin 2017, Manny Pacquiao founded the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League in hopes of giving players their chance to continue their dream to make it to the pro level. And in 2025, their women’s counterpart was launched, which was the WMPBL.
Personally, I was able to tune in to this league and how players have grabbed the spotlight.
And with them announcing that they’ll turn pro after a successful inaugural season wherein the Pilipinas Aguilas were named the champs after defeating the UST Growling Tigresses in 3 games in the Best of 3 finals, there’s still a slight thought at the back of my head saying..
This might be the last hope for female basketball players to have a home in the basketball scene in the Philippines. I’m just praying that I’ll be proven wrong.
