UNIVERSITY of the East coach Jack Santiago has been slapped with a two-game suspension for his actions in the Red Warriors' last game against University of the Philippines over the weekend.
Commissioner Tonichi Pujante levied the decision on Monday after the mentor was heard "instructing his student-athletes to deliberately harm UP's Ricci Rivero in the second quarter" of the Maroons' 81-66 victory on Saturday.
Violence condemned
"Violence is never an option," said Pujante of Santiago, a former Mapua player and longtime Franz Pumaren assistant who was named to replace the late Bong Tan and Lawrence Chongson at the helm of the Red Warriors.
"Let this serve as a lesson to the entire UAAP community as well."
Santiago won't be on the bench for UE's game on Tuesday against Far Eastern University on Tuesday and versus Ateneo on Thursday.
Santiago was recommended by Pujante to be suspended for the rest of the first round, or a total of three games. But an appeal from UE led to the penalty being downgraded to a two-game suspension.
Aside from Santiago, Pujante also summoned guard Harvey Pagsanjan for his unsportsmanlike foul penalty two on UP's Zavier Lucero at the 2:26 mark of the second quarter.
He will appear before the Commissioner's Office on Tuesday.
Ref suspended, too
Also, one of the three game officials that worked the UE-UP game was suspended for one game day after failing to act on Santiago's unsportsmanlike instructions.
The league declined to name the suspended referee.
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