What's My Line?

I absolutely hate lining up for UAAP basketball tickets. As much as I love watching my team, the Ateneo Blue Eagles, play basketball, I hate lining up at the Araneta Coliseum or at the Ateneo campus to get tickets. I’ve been watching Ateneo basketball since 1992, my freshman year of college. In that amount of time, I’ve seen the worst Blue Eagles that have struggled to win a single game in a season, and I’ve seen amazing Ateneo teams that have won two UAAP Championships.


Thus, when I line up for tickets, I carry 17 years worth of experience with me every single time. I’ve seen all kinds of systems implemented by both the Araneta Coliseum management as well as our own Ateneo College Athletics Office.

The thing that continues to bother me about Araneta in particular is the prevalence of scalpers who are trying to put one over on the paying public. These sons of bitches are willing to line up for tickets that will be released at 9:00 a.m. from 12:00 a.m. That’s a nine hour wait that they’re willing to endure because they believe they can turn a profit by being privy to those hard-to-come-by Patron, Lower Box, and Upper Box A tickets. Never mind that they will push people out of the way and sneak ahead of other people who lined up at around the same time, these jerks will do whatever it takes for those tickets.

To be fair to Araneta Center security, they have taken measures in recent years to clamp down on scalpers. Nowadays, the Big Dome requires people to bring either a school ID or alumni card that proves that you came from whichever school is playing before they sell you tickets. In the absence of those, an authorization letter with a photocopy of one’s ID will usually suffice. This past Friday, October 2, 2009, my brother and I were at the Yellow Gate of Araneta at around 5:00 a.m. to line up for Game 2 of the UAAP Finals between Ateneo and University of the East (UE). Some older folks told us that Araneta security dispersed a group that tried to line up earlier, so we just sat down in front of the closed Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. By around 6:00 a.m. though, the security people allowed a line to be formed. In a matter of seconds, my brother and I were lined up behind approximately 10 people. However, as the time started nearing 8:00 a.m., we both noticed that there were now close to 30 people ahead of us. The classic Pinoy sickness of “singit” or trying to sneak into a line popped its ugly head once again. When other people pointed out the sneaky bastards, these assholes had the gall to start causing a commotion and screaming to high heavens that they lined up just as early as the rest of us did.

Thankfully, by the time the ticket booth opened, the Araneta Center staff turned these scumbags away because they couldn’t provide the proper identification and their authorization letters were clearly false. A major point against Araneta though is that they never issued any directive on what their ticket-selling policy was for these UAAP Finals. Thus, there were parents who lined up with their kids (current Ateneo students) whom the security personnel were refusing to sell tickets to because the parents didn’t possess Ateneo IDs. Clearly, information dissemination is a problem at the Big Dome.

Over in Loyola Heights, the College Athletics Office tried a new wrinkle for this UAAP season: separate selling of tickets for Grade School students and faculty, High School students and faculty, college students and faculty, and alumni. In all of these situations, no proxies would be allowed to line up in lieu of the student, faculty member, or alumni concerned. This information was disseminated via e-mail to alumni, Facebook posting, as well as on the goAteneo.com website. In other words, it was made known to any Atenean who cared about the basketball team early in the season that this was the new policy. Yet, there were still a few assholes who refused to acknowledge this same policy.

A certain Mr. Cancio and his associates tried having their driver line up for him and his family during the first round game between Ateneo and La Salle scheduled for August 9, 2009. This Mr. Cancio is probably in his late 40s-early 50s, has a son who is in college in the Ateneo, yet acts like he’s still the big man on campus who’s used to bullying people around. Despite everybody in line knowing the “no proxy rule”, this bastard and his friends kept insisting that the driver lined up for him, he was paying the driver to line up for him, and that he was in the right. Needless to say, this rubbed a lot of people in line the wrong way. We were all cranky because we lined up from approximately 1:00 p.m. for tickets that would only start selling at 7:00 p.m. in Loyola Gym, but Mr. Cancio only served to piss all of us off more because he was stubborn, disrespectful to the College Athletics Office personnel, and belligerent. Jerks like this think that they are entitled to have any of their employees line up for them without regard for the current rules.

On the same day that we got out tickets from Araneta in the morning, namely October 2, 2009, Mr. Cancio and his friends were at it again, in Loyola Gym that afternoon. He once again insisted having his driver line up for him so that he could get more tickets. This time, Cancio completely disrespected a member of the College Athletics Office, Mr. Benjo Afuang, threatening him bodily harm and even challenging Afuang to a fistfight outside Loyola Gym. Mr. Cancio did all of this in full view of everyone who was in line, and even though his own wife was telling him to calm down and that he was wrong. What did Mr. Cancio tell his wife? “You shut up!” is what this classy gentleman told his spouse. Mr. Afuang had been dealing with Cancio and his antics as calmly as possible since August, but even he has a boiling point. When Cancio got in Mr. Afuang’s face and even bumped his chest, Mr. Afuang told the ass to put his money where his mouth was and engage Mr. Afuang right there in front of everyone. If cooler heads had not prevailed, Mr. Cancio would probably have had his ass handed to him by the younger gentleman. Di ka na nahiya, eh ang tanda mo na.

The point is this: no matter where you line up for UAAP tickets, whether it be in a public venue like Araneta Coliseum or in a private institution like the Ateneo campus, assholes are everywhere. They may not be just scalpers who are trying to make a profit by jacking up ticket prices, they might just be fellow Ateneans who think they are entitled to tickets and the rules don’t apply to them. Shame on all of you.