JOHN Amores extended the first olive branch to St. Benilde in the fallout of his punching incident as he paid the Blazers a visit on Saturday.
Coach Charles Tiu shared that the former Heavy Bombers forward reached out to Benilde player Carlos Sumabat to begin the healing process between the parties and showed up to the CSB practice to personally apologize to the team.
"We spoke on Thursday and I invited him lang to practice if he wanted to apologize and he did," Tiu said.
[READ: John Amores dropped from JRU program]
"We're happy that he did that. It takes a lot of humility for him to accept his mistakes and to come up in front of the whole team to just say sorry. It's not easy."
Amores also had a chance to say sorry to the parents of Jimboy Pasturan who by chance were present in the team's trainings, Tiu said,
"At least kahit na medyo masama pa rin loob nila, nakapag-apologize si John."
"It's a step towards the right direction for him. He said he wants to have a fresh start. And kami naman, we told him that we will try to help him in anyway that we can. For us, tapos na yung incident. We also asked for kahit papaano a little apologies to Mark Sangco and everybody for what happened."
Tiu believes that this is a huge part of the healing process for both Amores and CSB as they try to move on from this dark chapter in the league's history.
"It's big, but kami to be honest, we've really tried to move forward from it already," he said. "Actually John also said that he's apologizing na ginulo niya kami [at a time] na we're playing for something."
Tiu, however, said that due process must still be followed, one that even Amores acknowledged.
Pasturan and Taine Davis filed formal complaints against Amores before the San Juan Prosecutor's Office last week in the fallout of the rampage.
"The nice thing about John, he's accepting naman whatever consequences. He didn't really ask or beg sila Jimboy to throw away the case and I said that's really up to the families and the players," he said.
"It's really easy for us to say sa team na sige tanggalin or drop that case but we weren't really the ones who got hurt like them. So we leave it up to the families and we'll support their decision. John understands naman and we respect him for that."
[READ: Two Blazers file complaint against Amores]
To Tiu and the rest of the Blazers, they'd rather move forward from this as they wish the best for Amores as he looks to rebuild himself after this controversy.
"We wish him the best. We hope that one day he can revive his career somehow and I hope another team gives him a chance. Sana he learns from this and becomes a better person but we're very happy na at least siya may kusa na lumapit sa amin and to reach out. It says a lot about the person," he said.
"Pero kami, we've already put that in the past. We're just focused on our next games."
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