The 71st season of the UAAP has just started yesterday with the opening ceremonies that lasted for 3 hours even though it was only for one hour, and a bunch of games that went down the wire. Great way to start the new season. It will be even better when La Salle and Ateneo open up both their UAAP 71 campaigns against each other. The game will feature a special appearance of Gilbert “Agent Zero” Arenas, whom both the Lasallians and Ateneans are wishing to stay in one of the dugouts in the Araneta Coliseum to keep him off the ticket list. Nevermind the VIP treatment that will be given to him, as long as he’s kept in the dugout, according to some Ateneans and Lasallians. Still, it’s HIBACHI! But before that…
…T15P exposes you to 2 weeks worth of narrations, personal experiences, hardships and triumphs in the most fabled rivalry in Philippine sports. De La Salle versus Ateneo, side-by-side again. The Ingliseros and the Ingliseras of the Philippine society are coming out of their shells again with cups of Starbucks in one hand and cheer gear on the other to cheer for their respective schools. The narrations are based from personal experience of the author, first-hand data sources from the chika* of friends, and second hand sources like chika* of the people in the Internet. So this material is just basically all chika* with the twist of satire. You think that’s pathetic enough? Read the entire article and see for yourself.
Freshmen of Ateneo and La Salle, you better read this.
*chika - rumor, gossip
14 days to go: Good morning fella! You open up your internet and check your favorite NBA team fan site forum and check for new messages. It’s highly probable that you’re checking out Celtics forums but we don’t care. You open up RealGM for updates on the latest free agents in the market and you also check HoopsHype for the latest with your team’s player salaries. You open up Pinoy Basketball forums and poof! Your eyes and the section for the UAAP Season 71 thread meet. You open the thread. You read up the tentative team rosters and the tentative schedule of the respective teams. Ah, the sight of such excites you!
10 days to go: You’re still raving about the championship of the Celtics and snarking the Lakers for losing by 40. But then, you already have an idea of the UAAP lingering all over. You again check your favorite sites, do your internet routines, but this time, you obtain the official schedule of the current UAAP season. You look at the opening games. Poof again! Ateneo versus La Salle on opening week. You immediately think about tickets, but you just barely think about it, because hey, there’s still 10 days between now and the big game. Better not overhype yourself! You might lose the hype and the momentum when the game is on!
7 days to go: The big game is nearing. The excitement and the butterflies in the belly are building up. Your athletics office finally shows up and posts the ticket-selling schedule and instruction. Everybody feels the “freyshur” to get tickets. You start contemplating about classes to cut and ways to get yourself to be skyrocketed to the front of the ticket selling line. Besides, being at the very front will merit Upper A’s! You, your blockmates and your friends start talking about strategy for the selling and how you will execute the gameplan as a team. A lot of stupid ideas come out but lo and behold, you still come up with a stupid idea!
6 days to go: The talks intensify. More people are plagiarizing the same battle plan that you have talked about just approximately 24 hours ago. But fuck it, you’re continuing with the plan. You plan to be a Franz Pumaren who sticks to the system once the going gets tough. More people are talking about the tickets. You hear people talking in the canteen about their connections that can get them Patron and Lower Box seats. You suddenly become red with envy but then you realize, the people there are zombies. They are allergic to cheering, unlike you who’s ready to lose his voice for your alma mater. You still want Upper A tickets.
5 days to go: THE PEP RALLY! Oh golly, it’s your chance to see all of the athletes that’ll represent your university in the UAAP. Just like the others, you only cheer for the men’s basketball team and you just take blank stares at the other university sports teams. You also stare blankly at the university pep squad, but thank God, you memorize the cheers and you shout in unison with the squad. The freshman orientation really did a lot to your school loyalty. And then Chicosci takes over your pep rally and ruins it like fuck. You check your calendar and you realize that’s it’s time to execute the battle plan for tomorrow.
4 days to go: You woke up late. You know you won’t make it to the ticket-selling in front. Your world almost stumbles. You text your *ehem* blockmates and find out that holy crap, they made it to the front! They urge you to rush to the school before it’s too late. You comply. You go 100 in EDSA, setting a new world record for the fastest speed in EDSA. You come to the rescue of your blockmates in the nick of time. You wait for three hours and while waiting, you play Jackstone. After three hours, the athletics office suddenly just announces that the ticket-selling will be an online reservation system. You are visibly shocked. And pissed off at the athletics office for their incompetency to sell tickets now.
3 days to go: So far, you have had a very fine day. You were just answered by your new girlfriend a few hours ago. Now, you log in to a computer to get yourself tickets to the big game. Suddenly, shit strikes again. The “reserve” buttons are missing! You text your blockmates. They, too, were not able to reserve their tickets. You hard-refresh as fast as you could, but to no avail. You are about to punch the monitor with your burning fist but the girl beside you suffered the same fate. After 1 hour of refreshing, the reserve buttons come up. The Upper A tickets did not. They’ve already gone with the hard page refreshes. But there’s one more course of action left…
2 days to go: Your blockmates got their Upper A’s. You’re the one who’s left out. What’s the best solution? Scalpers! You’d find these men outside of your school looking like criminals and homeless people who shout U-AP U-AP but fear not! They hold the key to your eternal salvation! They have the Upper A tickets that you have been longing for all of your life. You approach them, but with caution for the fear that they may drop the tickets. You ask for their price and you get shocked with how corrupt and vile these people are. But who cares? You bargain a bit and then you get the ticket for a lower, bargained price. VICTORY FOR YOU!!!
24 hours to go: Since you got Upper A’s, why not brag about it? You ask people around you if they already got their ticket allocation for the game. Then you ask their section, just to find out that most of them could only afford Upper B’s. Inside you, you’re laughing hard at these people because you’re in Upper A! You party hard and drink harder for the bigger party that would happen tomorrow. You remove sleep out of your vocabulary because, damn it, you are effin pumped! You’re like an who’s excited because the kid is going to the mall for the first time. Still you drink more. You fell asleep anyway - out of intoxication. You get wasted.
Right on cue: IT’S THE BIG GAME! The drums of both schools officially rumble and tumble as the soundwaves pierce right through your heart, almost causing you to palpitate because of the excitement. You shout the school cheers with your blockmates as the cheer leaders cue it. Then the cheering becomes a jeering competition. You join, because you feel that you are obliged. You raise your middle finger pointing to the other side to express your disgust. Both middle fingers for maximum emphasis. Improvised cheers that are not in the schools’ cheerbooks come out. More middle fingers are raised. There’s a game in the stands. After a few minutes of jeering, 25 centavo coins start flying from nowhere.
Halftime: Since Ateneo and La Salle are the only two UAAP schools known for traditional “matigas ang katawan ko” cheering ever since, they showcase their cheer leading skills. They boastfully claim that such is greater than the jologs, pirated and baduy cheerdancing. And so the halftime routine goes. Then one school hits it with the cheerdance music special mega-remix. The latter school goes like “EWW ANG JOLOGS TANG INA NYO MGA POK SQUARED”, in reference to the other school. The former school, in retaliation, laughs hard when people from the latter fall from the lifts or stunts. Or when they commit wrong spelling and grammar.
Full time: It’s over. The smoke has cleared and a winner has been decided. The winning school sings their school hymn first and the losing side claps, pretending they give a flying fuck to the other school. Then they change turns, with the same pretensions with the clapping. After that, people file to exit the stadium. Of course the cheering won’t stop. Also the jeering. Since the people and the drums have been cleared, the jeers are as loud as ever. You’d hear tons expletives from each side. You’d hear them dig each other’s history and deficiencies. 25 centavo coins keep flying from heaven. Or from the other side. Of course, the winning fans get to rub it in the face of the losing fans. And so a gameday ends.
24 hours after: You and your friends talk about the game. You analyze it to a level that Quinito Henson would already butt in to your conversation if he only could. You talk about the players you hate from the other side because of how well they played, trash-talked, or bullied your players. Of course you’d talk about the top performers and the goats of your team in that game. You’d overemphasize the value of one turnover or one bonehead shot and how could it have been instrumental for your win. If you lost, it’s definitely sure that you’d make the NABRO refs the goats, and you would excruciatingly point out how their bad calls affected the game in such a way that your team lost the game. Then you look forward to the next meeting.
There you have it. Your typical two-week timeline leading up to big Ateneo versus La Salle games with some post-game breakdown.
As for the timeline of the first La Salle-Ateneo encounter this year in Season 71, there’s only less than 24 hours left. THE CLOCK IS TICKING, ASSWIPE!
