WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The Filipinas are in for a festive, morale-boosting treat as they play the hometown Football Ferns in a critical second FIFA Women’s Group A match at the Sky Stadium here Tuesday afternoon.
Numbering close to a hundred, Filipino expatriates clad in colorful “Ati-Atihan” attire will do a street dance starting at 4 p.m. from Shed 6, popular waterfront hangout, then march towards the Sky Stadium in time for time for the kick-off of the Philippine-New Zealand match at 1:30 p.m. (Manila time).
The colorful costumes are part of the popular annual “Ati-Atihan” festival in Aklan that is one the country’s top tourist attractions.
“We bought our tickets early, then it suddenly dawned upon us that this is going to be a very historic game so we just had to do something to boost the morale of our national team,” Matilde Figuracion, head of the Filipino Artists in New Zealand and one of the event’s organizers, said Monday.
“Since Filipinos are now among the biggest ethnic presence here, I believe it was only right to support them so we organized this in the last two weeks,” Figuracion, a ranking New Zealand government employee here for nearly 20 years, disclosed.
She said word of their pep rally for the charges of Australian coach Alen Stajcic had begun to spread around that the event became a front-page story last week for the Wellington-based Dominion Post, complete with pictures of them wearing their costumes.
Figuracion said these were the same ones that were well-preserved when they took part as one of the cultural sidelights in 2011 when New Zealand hosted the World Rugby Cup.
“We will assemble at Shed 6 where we will begin our street dance then walk through the side streets leading to the Sky Stadium. We managed to get approval from FIFA to bring in our costumes and drums inside,” said the community leader, whose husband, Mark, will be one of the drummers.
