“Mid-June na opening as per agreement with GMA due to ECQ,” Colegio de San Juan de Letran’s Fr. Vic Calvo, NCAA management committee chair said in a message to GMA News Online.

Looking back, Fr. Calvo assured that Season 96 will see action in the first week of May even without a bubble set up but now has to break his promise.

The new development was also because of the “lack of workforce and mobility” with new broadcast partner GMA and the league due to the reimposition of the extended ECQ until the end of April.

Nonetheless, there are no changes to its plan of conducting virtual competitions for taekwondo and chess, as well as holding skills challenge competitions for volleyball and basketball—slam dunk and three-point shootout.

While in terms of the safety of the athletes and officials, the league announced that they are planning to be in touch with Unilab for the Covovax vaccine.

And since audiences is not allowed to the upcoming season, the games will be aired by GMA Network using different platforms.