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Monday, September 20, 2004
Rama: Unfaltering, unwavering after a year
By KARLON N. RAMA
STAGE FIVE
WHAT happens inside a year? Some would say nothing much, though others would remark: More than a handful.
People age a full step with every coming year. However, whether or not older brings us closer to being better – or our closest approximation to what better means – nobody can say for sure.
It was on this exact day a year ago that the first Stage Five came out. I wont’ speak of quality though I am confident that it’ll get better and better with your continued support and patronage.
There aren’t any milestones to speak of and no large accomplishments to report. The only successes I care to count are (1) the progress we’ve so far made in bringing out what was treated as an underground sport into the mainstream and (2) that the modest yet continuously increasing number of people who find relevant what gets written in this weekly affair.
Practical shooting competitions are held on a weekly basis here in Cebu but, after Cebu’s 1999 hosting of World Shoot 12, an international shooting competition held every two years, none of the games have been given the attention they so richly deserve.
The media institution, both local an national, in its intent to remain conservative and perhaps not wanting to face an ignorance-fed anti-gun lobby group, denied the sport exposure necessary for its development.
In the 1999 World Shoot, for example, Filipina shooter Atheena Lee won the gold in the Women’s Open. The match was big news abroad and was covered by Cebu dailies but only because the competition itself was held here.
FASTEST GUN ALIVE. In 2002, Lee’s title passed to Kaye Cabalatungan, who fought for it in an intensely heated match in South Africa. The match again hugged the headlines in the US but it was deemed “newsletter material” here. She’s expected to defend her title in Ecuador in 2005.
Another example is the current “fastest gun alive,” 15-year-old KC Eusebio. The teen titan from Luzon embarrassed big-shot shooters like Rob Leatham, Doug Koenig and Tod Jarrett by winning the 2003 World Speed Shooting Championship in California. Again, there was little word about the boy’s accomplishment here in the country.
If the performance of local shooters in international matches hardly gets noticed, one can only surmise the amount of attention the matches organized by the local clubs get.
Such little media support make it difficult for organizers to call up matches where up-and-coming shooters shine and, hopefully, get noticed by potential sponsors who can bring the game to an entirely new level.
With the regular focus we started to bring to the weekly games last year, mainstream sports media practitioners themselves are getting interested in how matches go, giving local shooters their chance to, quoting sportsman Bobby Inoferio, “razzle and dazzle.”
So much so that the Sportswriters Association of Cebu (SAC), in February this year, awarded young shooter Sandino Cinco for accomplishments in the field of practical shooting. It was the first award of its kind given by the SAC to a competitive shooter. It’s a good enough start.
By not giving so much attention to the local gun clubs and to the sport of practical shooting, media inadvertently also deprived the general public of a forum or venue where firearm-related issues like gun safety and firearm ownership responsibility can be discussed.
DISCUSSIONS. This is starting to be remedied now. The slow but sustained attention we give to practical shooting is starting to encourage the ordinary firearm enthusiasts into participating in the activities of the local gun clubs.
Discussions on practical gun-related topics like home and self-defense, firearm proficiency and responsible ownership, meanwhile, do nothing but highlight the importance of joining local clubs for training.
Some people, with the help of some exceptional individuals, have started to form their own organizations. Two such clubs, with the assistance of a very good friend – Adrian Gregory Tadena – have formed. The Kabkad Practical Shooters Club in Carcar and very recently the Talisay Aqua City Gun Club Inc. in Talisay City, are now waiting for their accreditation from the PNP.
Moreover, some have already sought range officership training with the National Range Officers’ Institute (NROI). Nine of them – Venancio Tangkay, Harold Nacua, Danilo Ledesma, Ging-ging Bayawa, all of Kabkad, together with Pio Capistrano, Johnson Calub, Manuel Castañares, Anthony Leguro and Felipe Yap, all of the Talisay Aqua City – finished their two-day NROI level 1 course yesterday. Capistrano, Calub and Castañares are also with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
Front Sight Gun Club’s Kenneth Abella, Romeo Decena Jr. and Romeo Nacion Jr., Romeo dela Victoria of Kamagong Gun Club Inc., and Levi and Nathaniel Lopez of the NS Gun Club of Mandaue joined the nine new range officers.
Practical shooting is a demanding sport and covering it for you is equally taxing. But, for as long as you’re interested in reading, knowing and learning more about this exciting sport and discipline, I’ll unwaveringly and unfalteringly dish out what I can week after week, after week.
(e-mail: knrama@sunstar.com.ph)
(September 20, 2004 issue)
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