'Where is Tab?': Ex-Tall Blacks coach silent after Filipino players drown during training
Thursday, 11 June 2026
Lawyers for a drowned basketball player's family will ask authorities to block former Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin from leaving the Philippines during the investigation.
Two university basketball players, aged 19 and 21, drowned on Monday afternoon when they were swept into deep water by a strong current during a team-building exercise.
The head of the Philippine Sports Commission has questioned Baldwin’s absence from the public eye.
Former players have criticised Baldwin's intense, military-style 'bootcamps,' while sports officials stated the training was definitely not standard practice.
The head of the Philippine Sports Commission has questioned former Tall Black coach Tab Baldwin’s absence from the public eye after two Filipino university basketball players he coached drowned during a team exercise.
Divine Adili, 21, and Rene Baterbonia, 19, of the Ateneo Blue Eagles died during the exercise on Monday, the Ateneo de Manila University confirmed.
The team’s head coach is Tab Baldwin ONZM, an American Kiwi who was the New Zealand men’s basketball coach between from 2001 to 2006 and guided the Tall Blacks to a historic 4th-place finish at the 2002 FIBA World Championship.
Baldwin has coached the Blue Eagles since 2016. He has not yet commented on the deaths. Stuff has approached him for comment.
“Where is Tab Baldwin?” commission chairperson Patrick Gregorio has asked, according to a report by local media outlet ABS-CBN.
“Why is he still not speaking up? This is beyond Ateneo. This is a national concern.”
“Out of respect for the family and the Filipino people, he has to come forward. He has been here for 10 years. I don't understand why he can't understand our culture.”
The Philippine Department of Labour and Employment said Thursday it had summoned Baldwin to present proof of his employment permit.
The drowning incident “raised questions about the conduct, supervision, and legal employment status of the foreign coaching staff overseeing the activity,” the labour department said.
Israelito Torreon, a lawyers speaking on behalf of the Baterbonia family, will reportedly seek an order preventing Baldwin from leaving the Philippines while investigations continue, according to the Daily Tribune.
“This is not personal,” Torreon said, explaining the family seeks “to ensure he does not return home, wherever that may be,” while the investigation takes place.
“We are not saying that he has any liability here,” he added.
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The Philippines Department of Justice has ordered a task force to investigate Adili and Baterbonia’s deaths and an inquiry into the safety standards at the university’s athletic programme is underway.
The Philippine National Police Aurora Provincial office confirmed there was no indication of foul play but the Philippine Sports Commission said its view was the training is “definitely not standard” or compliant with the policies of any national sports association, ABS-CBN reported.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Baldwin has come under scrutiny for his tough, military-style “bootcamps” and beach conditioning weeks, citing former team members.
A 2017 interview on sports news site Spin.ph with Baldwin and members of the Blue Eagles has recently resurfaced. One player described the week of intense pre-season training as “the worst week of our lives”.
But the players and Baldwin also credited the training for the later success of the team.
Baldwin said the training was inspired by American football coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s “hell” camp training.
“His very famous work is a camp that he had in 1954 for his Texas A&M football team. And the design of the camp was to develop a football team with the emphasis on ‘team’,” Baldwin said.
He told the outlet that Bryant’s camps were designed to break the egos of young athletes.
“The best way to do that is break the men and reduce him to a state where he can’t do things on his own and he requires the assistance of others in order to accomplish something,” Baldwin said in 2017.
“We designed physical and mental task at the camp which are essentially designed to do that — break the men.”
Former PSC chairman William ‘Butch’ Ramirez said the Blue Eagles coaching staff should “resign ASAP”, the Manila Bulletin reported.
Ramirez said there would be “painful lessons” to learn from the players’ deaths, which he described as a “tragedy that is sad for tertiary sports”.
Baldwin did not attend Rene Baterbonia’s wake on Wednesday, Spin.ph reported.
The family of Adili has requested an autopsy before his body is repatriated to Nigeria, according to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
On Monday, Police Regional Office 3 said the 'initial findings indicate that the victims were swimming when they were reportedly carried by a strong current into deeper waters'.
Police Colonel Percival R Pineda said the incident happened about 2.40pm in front of the resort where the Ateneo Blue Eagles were holding their team-building activity, involving around 20 members of the team, including players and coaching staff.
The pair were taken to Aurora Memorial Hospital to be resuscitated but were declared dead on arrival.