Meralco turned back a pesky Rain or Shine side, 121-111, in a duel between all-Filipino teams in the PBA Season 49 Commissioner’s Cup at the Ynares Center in Antipolo on Sunday, Dec. 1.

Chris Newsome set the tone for the Bolts as they led for the most part of the contest even with the premature exit of import Akil Mitchell due to what was suspected to be a broken nose early in the game.

The Gilas Pilipinas mainstay poured 21 of his 25 points in the first half, allowing Meralco to seize control before the rest of the team did just enough to keep ROS at bay in the end and join NorthPort and Eastern in the early lead of the standings.

All three teams are now sporting similar 2-0 records.

Bong Quinto provided support to Newsome with 20 points and so was Jansen Rios who was a spark plug off the bench with 16.

Raymond Almazan and Cliff Hodge manned the paint in the absence of their import with the former posting a double-double of 13 points and 16 rebounds while the latter had 11 points and 11 rebounds on top of five blocks.

The debuting Rain or Shine played without import Deon Thompson who was not allowed to play as he has yet to secure his work permit.

Even without an import though, the Elasto Painters, who reached as far as the semifinals of the last two conferences, strutted their wares and did not allow the Bolts to get any sort of comfortable separation.

Tempers even flared at one point early in the final frame as Beau Belga and ROS head coach Yeng Guiao got into a verbal altercation with Meralco active consultant Nenad Vucinic.

While cooler heads eventually prevailed, the confrontation seemed to have lit up a fire in Meralco which continued to take control of the contest.

Rain or Shine was refusing to go down without a fight though as it cut the lead down to just five points inside the last 19.3 seconds before Quinto went for 4-of-4 from the charity stripe in the waning seconds to settle the score.

Six players scored in double figures for ROS with Keith Datu supplying 17 points followed by Adrian Nocum who had 15 and Santi Santillan who finished with 14.