An explanation of the difference in the values of the apparent f /d ratios for the S-and P-wave amplitudes of nonleptonic hyperon decays is proposed. The argument is formulated in the framework of the standard pole model with (56,O') ground-state and (70, I -) excited baryons as intermediate states for the P and S waves, respectively. Under the assumption that the dominant part of the deviation of (f /dl, , , , , from -1 is due to large quark sea effects, SU(3) symmetry breaking in energy denominators is shown to lead to a prediction for (f /dls , , , , which is in excellent agreement with experiment. This corroborates our previous unitarity calculations which indicated that the matrix elements ( BIH:& lB' ) of the parity-conserving weak Hamiltonian between the ground-state baryons are characterized by fo/do= -1.6 or more. A brief discussion of the problem of the relative size of S-and P-wave amplitudes is given. Finally, implications for weak radiative hyperon decays are also discussed.