THERE was a bit of a confusion in the volleyball community at the start of the year when the Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas Inc. (LVPI) and the Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) released separate schedules for the national men's and women's teams for 2020.
The PVF, headed by Edgardo 'Boy' Cantada, didn't exactly declare that it is sending a national team to the above-mentioned tournaments for 2020. But the two schedules were enough to raise the question: which really is the legitimate, duly recognized governing body for volleyball in the Philippines?
The LVPI, of course, is the official governing body, ever since 2015 when it got the recognition from the board of administration of volleyball's international governing body FIVB upon the endorsement of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC).
Look:

As the duly recognized national governing body, only LVPI has to right and responsibility to send Philippine squads to all tournaments sanctioned by both the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) and the FIVB, among other responsibilities, according to LVPI national program head Peter Cayco.
"Hindi totoo yung sa PVF," said Cayco when asked about the PVF claim. “They want to create a perception na sila yung registered ng FIVB.“
“Sabi ko okay lang kung sila, e wala pa naman kaming natanggap [na communication na sila na],” he added.
However, the PVF, which for so long was the duly recognized governing body of the sport until it was replaced by the LVPI in 2015, didn't entirely go away.
The present-day PVF is still a member of FIVB but has already lost all of its rights since January last year. That has been the case, as per a confirmation released by the world volleyball body in January 2019.
Responding to a letter from the PVF, the FIVB insisted the association 'has ceased to fulfill the conditions for membership to the FIVB' since it was stripped of recognition by the POC and therefore 'has lost all its rights but for membership.'
“Yung huli naming natanggap na communication from FIVB Legal,” he said, "sinulatan nila si PVF that you have lost all your rights and privileges with the FIVB except for membership.”
Here’s the letter from FIVB General Director Fabio Azevedo:

But is that the end of the story? Hardly.
According to volleyball officials, the LVPI is only recognized as a provisional member of the FIVB after failing to get the two-thirds vote from members.
If you take a look, the provisional status was confirmed in a letter sent out by the FIVB back in 2017.

So what happens now?
According to longtime volleyball official Ricky Palou, head of Sports Vision which organizes the Premier Volleyball League (PVL), top FIVB officials were in the country last November to sort out the mess, among other businesses.
After being briefed of the Philippine situation, the top FIVB officials, Palou said, are moving to settle the leadership issue for good by asking all of the sports' stakeholders to come together in a general assembly and hold an election to be supervised by the POC.
"(The FIVB officials) said to give them until the end of January to act on this," Palou said.
Palou said the FIVB officials have also met with Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Butch Ramirez and POC head Bambol Tolentino, who, Palou said, is amenable to the FIVB move.
So will the PVF be part of this exercise? That remains to be seen.
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