La Salle-Ateneo duel neither green nor blue but black

MANILA, Philippines - For a change, long-time rivals La Salle and Ateneo won’t clash before a sea of green and blue crowd for their blockbuster first round UAAP face-off at the MOA Arena tomorrow but rather in a shade of black on both ends.

Instead of their usual team colors, supporters of the rival schools have been “invited” to wear black garments or black clothing accessories to the game as an expression of sentiments against the proposed heroes’ burial for former President Ferdinand Marcos and alleged extrajudicial killings.

In a memo to the Ateneo university community, Ateneo president Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin and VP for social development Jaime Hofilena said this is meant to “express our solidarity with human rights violations and with all others struggling to uphold human rights in the country.”

A parallel “invitation” was issued by Br. Michael Broughton, VP for La Salle Mission, to the DLSU community.

“(This is) in the light of considerable sentiments and convictions expressed by various sectors of both De La Salle and Ateneo university community expressing our opposition to the possible Marcos burial at Libingan ng Bayani and impassioned concern about the emergence of a culture of death stemming from the increasing number of extra-judicial killings,” the DLSU memo said.

This won’t be the first time Ateneo and La Salle will share a common color in a game. In 2009, the supporters of the two squads dropped their school colors in favor of yellow to pay tribute to former President Cory Aquino, who passed away that year.