Exactly a year after the infamous brawl between the Mapua Institute Technology Cardinals and the Emilio Aguinaldo College Generals, a near brawl involving the latter squad and the University of Perpetual Help DALTA Altas marred the post-game of their tilt.
During the closing minutes of the game, Perpetual’s Nikolo Cabiltes and EAC’s Rico Diego and Raymund Pascua were all ejected after Cabiltes and Diego shoved each other after a rebound play while Pascua instigating a fight instead of pacifying the situation.
Just as everyone thought that cooler heads prevailed, EAC’s Sidney Onwubere and Raymund Pascua were involved in a skirmish with Perpetual’s Niko Cabiltes at the parking lot of the Filoil Flying V Arena in San Juan City.
According to one eyewitness account, Cabiltes was waiting in the parking lot of the said venue. As the EAC players came out of the Arena, Cabiltes confronted Onwubere and Pascua. As Onwubere and Cabiltes confronted each other and exchanged curses, Pascua was said to have thrown multiple punches at the back of the Perpetual player. Onwubere then joined in the fray according to the witness.
Perpetual’s GJ Ylagan and Nestor Bantayan confirmed the incident in saying that “Binalikan kami ng EAC. Inawat na nga namin ayaw paawat. Umikot sa likod yung Pascua, sinapak si Cabiltes. Tapos ayun nag kagulo na.”
The witness then said that Bright Akhuetie and Hamadou Laminou tried to stop the melee together with GJ Ylagan and Bantayan.
Officials from the EAC camp have yet to respond to our calls.
This was an unfortunate incident marking the one-year anniversary of the Mapua-EAC brawl. The league is still investigating the incident as of publishing.
