Despite Philippine National Volleyball Federation Inc. (PVNF) president Tats Suzara’s ‘no tryouts, no national team’ policy, Tony Boy Liao says veteran players who missed the national tryouts in Subic are still needed to form the best team to rise in the international stints. 

“Yung kanyang, ‘No tryouts, no national team’ [policy], for him that’s his idea. But still, the executive board will decide on all of these teams kasi madaming stars ang hindi nasali dyan e,” Liao said during an appearance with Sports Vision head Ricky Palou in the Power & Play show of Noli Eala.

“So if I think na gusto mapagmedalya ang Pilipinas sa coming SEA Games, eh kailangan talaga isalang yung mga stars na hindi nasali para maging malakas ang national team natin,” he added.

In addition, Liao believes that the PNVF board can be more understanding and make space for the veteran stars headed by Valdez, Jia Morado, and Dawn Macandili who among are the 23 invitees who missed the tryouts due to varying reasons, mostly due to to their fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus and the risk of bringing it home to their families.

Meanwhile, Liao stated that they are looking for plans for the Philippine youth team that will compete in the Asian juniors tournament next year regarding the student-athletes who attended the tryouts.

The PNVF is also eyeing a Subic bubble training for its national pool from May to November.

Since some players are to play in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL), Liao and Palou assured that the federation will allow members of the pool to concentrate on their teams’ stint, which is slated for either late June or early July and will run for two months.

“Actually, according to Tats Suzara, he wants the training to be seven months in Subic but he also said that those members of the national pool that are playing in the PVL will concentrate first on their PVL club teams,” Liao averred.

With other non-PVL players of the national team who will not be playing in the league, Palou said they have plans on inviting them not to be part of the league but to play scrimmages. 

In that way, Mamon will have an opportunity to hold practice sessions inside the bubble during the PVL conference without fear of contracting the global health malady.

“The club teams are fully supporting the plans of the national federation for the national team. We’ve actually proposed to the federation that while the PVL is going on, we’d like the national layers to also be present so that at the same time the coaching staff will be able to train and have practices with all the members of the pool,”  Palou said.

“I think president Suzara has agreed in principle to this type of arrangement so the whole pool will continuously be training prior to its participation in the international tournaments. Being able to practice with the club teams will do them really good,” he propounded.

The PVL is also looking for one conference this year to give way for the national team build-up for the SEA Games, bringing in imports for a Reinforced Conference but will be a challenge for them due to travel restrictions.