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BRANDON Ganuelas-Rosser looks to follow in the footsteps of his brother, San Miguel winger Matt, as he tosses his name on the roster of contenders for the next PBA Rookie Draft.
This is easier said than done, however, as Brandon faces a more difficult process in his quest to enter the league.
In the eyes of the PBA, Matt is considered a locally sourced applicant when he applied in 2014, while Brandon is a foreign fil.
That’s even though the two are brothers.
How is that?
Well, Matt was born in the town of Olongapo in 1990. When Mt. Pinatubo blew up a year later, his parents James Rosser, a retired US Navy, and Gina Ganuelas decided to move from Subic to the United States.
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It was in San Diego that Brandon was born in 1994 that the Ganuelas-Rossers settled in the United States.
The PBA rules recognize players born in the country as locals, while those who are out of the country, regardless of whether both parents are pure Filipinos, as fil-foreigners.
Matt studied at California State Polytechnic University before being shortlisted in the Gilas Pilipinas group in 2012 and won a gold medal at the 2013 Southeast Asian Games in Naypyidaw.
That stint for Gilas made his path to the pros straightforward as he saw action for NLEX in the PBA D-League before being voted fourth overall by Talk ‘N Text in the 2014 PBA Draft.
Meanwhile, Brandon went to UC Riverside and finally came to the country in 2018 as a member of the San Miguel Alab Pilipinas, playing in the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) for the past two seasons.
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However, despite having a Filipino passport, the 6-foot-7-inch banger still has to meet the citizenship requirements for fil-foreign applicants: the Certificate of Recognition as a Filipino Citizen and the Affirmation of Recognition as a Filipino Citizen, of the Department of Justice and the Office of Immigration.
It’s the homework Brandon and his party will have to provide before the January 27 deadline in hopes of joining his older brother Matt at the PBA.
