HISTORY OF VOLLEYBALL IN THE PHILIPPINES

INTRODUCTION (BRIOL)
Philippine volleyball history began in 1910 when the Philippines was a United States territory
(1898–1946). The Filipinos have made significant contributions to volleyball in its evolution as a
professional and international game. The Filipinos continued playing volleyball up to the modern-
day period in its status as an independent republic (1946–present).
Volleyball in the Philippines is a female-dominated sports, with two commercial leagues serving
as the de facto top-flight leagues in the country; the Philippine Super Liga and the Premier
Volleyball League. The Spikers' Turf is the top-tier men's volleyball league in the Philippines.
It was introduced to the Filipinos by an American named Elwood S. Brown, the Physical Director
of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). Early in the history of the game of volleyball in
the Philippines, the Filipinos used trees as makeshift net holders (the net was hung between the
two chosen trees)

FILIPINO CONTRIBUTIONS (AMPALAYO)

1. THREE-HIT LIMIT
The first contribution was that the Filipinos inspired American players to create the "three-hit
limit" for each player in modern-day volleyball. This number of limits in hitting the ball was based
by American volleyball players from the Filipino way of letting each player hit the ball before
sending or "volleying" it over to the side of the opponent team. The Americans revised this
method to become the "three-hit limit" because the old way of taking turns in hitting the ball took
too much time, and had been observed to affect the intensity of the game and the motivation of
the participating volleyballers (lessens the "challenge and the competitive nature" of the game).

2. SETTING AND SPIKING THE BALL

The second Filipino contribution was the "set and spike" maneuver, also known as "set and hit",
"setting and spiking", or just "spike". A spike is a form of volleyball "attack" done by the player by
jumping, raising one arm above the head and hitting the ball so it will move quickly down to the
ground on the opponent's court. The set, on the other hand, is an over-hand pass done by the
setter (another player) using the wrists to push finger-tips at the ball.
It was after accepting the new set of rules created by the Americans regarding the "three-hit limit"
when the Filipino volleyball players at the time invented the "set and spike" maneuver. The new
technique invented by the Filipinos prompted American enthusiasts and participants in volleyball
to call it as the "Filipino bomb", because "spiking the ball" was like a "hit" or a form of "attack" that
can squash or "kill" the opportunity of the opponent team to hit the ball back for a possible point
or win. A more apt description of "hitting and spiking" is that it is "an offensive style of passing the
ball in a high trajectory to be struck by another player.

ASSOCIATIONS (ASUMBRA)
The Philippine Amateur Volleyball Association (PAVA) was founded by the Playground and
Recreation Bureau (PRB) of the Philippines on July 4, 1961. It was renamed the Philippine
Volleyball Federation (PVF) in 2003. The PVF was the recognized sporting body for volleyball
until 2015, when recognition was transferred to the Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas (LVPI),
following a leadership dispute in the PVF. The LVPI itself was succeeded by the Philippine
National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) in 2021.