MANILA, Philippines — Support for the University of the Philippines (UP) poured in as it battles defending champion Ateneo de Manila University at the UAAP men’s basketball finals.
But professor Elmer Rufo from UP Los Baños took his support for the UP Fighting Maroons to another level with a witty video encouraging support for the basketball team.
Posted on Saturday, Dec. 1, the professor wore a Barong with UP’s Sablay over his shoulder while holding a UP Oblation statuette.
In the video, he gave important points to note while watching UP and ADMU’s game.
One of them was to shout “Shoot that ball!” when UP has possession to the ball: “Ang isisigaw natin ‘shoot that ball,’ hindi po balls. Kasi iba na yung balls.”
The professor added: “Tapos kapag bola naman ng kalaban, ang isisigaw natin ‘get that ball!’ not ‘get his ball’ o kaya ‘get your ball.’ Wala po tayong pakialam sa mga balls nila.”
On what pushed him to make the video, Rufo said in a phone interview with Inquirer that it was “to manifest support for the UP men’s basketball team. So in my creative ways, I want to campaign for the support for the team.”
In fact, Rufo said he didn’t expect his video to go viral though his niece believed it would.
He recounted: “I said I wanted to wear Barong and sablay when I did the video and then she said ‘Tito magva-viral yan.’”
Rufo only expected the video to gain about a thousand views, “but in just a couple of hours, the video went thousands and thousands.”
Many of his students flooded the comment section of the video, expressing how proud they were that he was their professor.
He said: “The comments of my students manifest that they actually are proud that I was their professor so that is really something that actually soothes me as a person.”
With the video gaining attention online, it also reached UP Fighting Maroons team captain Paul Desiderio.
“Actually, I got a friend request from the team captain Paul Desiderio and then of course without hesitation I accepted the request right away,” Rufo said.
Desiderio, said Rufo, sent a message that read: “Hi Elmer. Nakita ko video mo kanina. Tawa ako nang tawa. Maraming salamat sa suporta mo.”
Although the main reason why he made the video was to show support to UP men’s basketball, Rufo said it was also to spread happiness.
“Thank you for sharing because that’s how I ended the video, I told them to share the video not only to show support for the UP men’s basketball team, but to spread happiness,” he said.
The video has garnered over 161,000 views and 1,800 shares, as of writing. /cbb