OFWs fall prey to ticket scam, cheer Team Phl

LONDON – A group of Overseas Filipino Workers who came all the way from the United Arab Emirates to cheer for Filipino athletes found themselves victims of internet scam but they are bringing down the house elsewhere, wherever they go outside the venues with their getups and their happy “Go Philippines” cheering props.

The Filipinos, one male and five females from Dubai, were on their first cheering stint in the Games, at the archery range of the millionaire’s Lord’s Cricket Club in east London, when they were refused entry at the gates by marshals.

The event was the qualification round of the archery competitions in the London Games last July 27.

“We bought our tickets on-line but we were told at the gates that the competition does not allow spectators to watch,” said Fe Rizal Huera, a sales administration and group coordinator of a firm in UAE.

Despite the incident, the six OFWs remained in high spirits as they plan, this time, to buy their tickets from the booth to watch other games of the Filipinos in swimming, shooting, athletics, judo, boxing or cycling.

The six OFWs, who work with separate firms in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are taking a 10-day company-paid annual leave to visit London to cheer for Team Phl in the course of their tour of the UK. Five are in their 20s and 30s while a sixth is in her 40s.

The group is on a vacation tour every year through the initiative of their lone male companion, Michael, who has been arranging small yearly tours for close friends the past six years, although one or two had joined the tour the first time.

“It’s been my dream to visit other countries and it’s great fun being able to experience it again and again,” said Michael, who is the only member that has completed the six-year annual getaway.

“We thought it would be great to come to London this time to watch the Olympics and cheer for our kababayans in the Games,” said Michael.

“We come from different companies in the UAE, but we manage to come together, through the internet and our cellphones, to plan our foreign tour out of UAE,” he added. “Kung minsan tambak-tambak na ang email ko sa dami ng incoming mails!”

“We’ve been doing this yearly and it’s fun since we limit the tour to only six,” Michael said. “I do all the research and booking so we don’t have to get a tourist agency to do it for us. This lowers the cost a lot.”

Each paid only the equivalent of P32,000 for a round trip ticket to London.

“We also cut down on hotel accommodations a lot because we choose low budget inns. At saka pagdating sa meals, ambag-ambag kami. Kung minsan kumakain kami sa daan habang naglalakad. Walang pili sa pagkain. Masaya.”

“We planned for London because of the Olympics. Siempre, iba na ang Olympics and we want very much to be part of the participation of our athletes,” Fe said.

The group has come here complete with getups and props. Dressed in black shirts with “Philippines Kabarkada Tour” and “UKlympics” written in front, the Olympic tourists have other props ready for their cheering engagement – pom poms, yellow colored headgear, a large poster with the word “PHILIPPINES” written in large bold letters, and another with “I LOVE OLYMPICS (denoted by an Olympic ring logo), and a small Philippine flag and lots of small Philippine-inspired materials, one saying “It’s more fun in the Philippines.”

After lunch at a Thai restaurant at the Westfield Mall the morning after Olympic opening ceremonies, the OFWs had a photo session at an open space fronting the Olympic Vilage. They instantly drew the attention of a huge crowd that saw them proudly wearing the Philippine getups.

Soon, a number of Filipinos in the crowd also joined in the photo session as Britons, which had come in the thousands to watch the games in the nearby Olympic venues, stopped to watch the Filipinos yell out their choreographed cheer for the Philippine team.

London is, of course, not the first and final destination of   country’s ambassadors of goodwill from the Middle East.

“We are also going to Cardilf (Wales), Edinburgh (Scotland) and other key places of the UK,” said Michael.

Their next stop after the UK?

“It will be a place in Eastern Europe, and we’re preparing for it now,” said Michael.

OLYMPIC NOTES: The Lord’s Cricket Club, a very rich, exclusive club for the UK’s no. 1 sport, had decided to lock up the club to allow only the participants, their coaches and media to be in the playing area. Concentration is the name of the game, as they say it. This must have prompted unscrupulous merchants to sell unauthorized tickets to unsuspecting customers...Broadcast media are allowed a space only on the far side of the field, away from the periphery of vision of the archer... Print media journalists are allowed only at the stands on the farther side... After the competitions, the marshals closed the open tent sheltering the archers, blocking reporters and other cameramen taking shots from behind. The organizers had to give in to the exclusive coverage of a local TV station which is the carrying station of the Games.