Monday, June 04, 2007 Rama: Slipping past an ambush via Kamagong way By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
WORD that motorcycle-riding assassins ambushed and tried to kill Nestor Zamoras in Mabolo last Saturday came as a complete surprise.
He is a member of the Kamagong Gun Club Inc. and, before the election gun ban took effect, I used to see him practicing in the range almost every Saturday afternoon in the company of businessman Jojo Roble.
Nestor shoots, if I remember right, with a Para-Ordnance pistol in .40 cal. And he is fairly good with it, having joined a couple of club shoots and defensive pistol matches.
Soft-spoken and courteous, he is the last person I’d expect would earn a contract killer’s attention. And after talking to him early yesterday morning, he apparently thought so too.
He says he has no enemies to speak of and added that all his business transactions are above board.
According to Nestor, he was cruising on F. Cabahug St. in Mabolo in his pickup when he noticed a red motorcycle following him. He said he continued driving until, at the vicinity of Castle Peak Hotel, one of the perpetrators opened fire.
Instinctively, Nestor narrated, he floored the accelerator and drove the vehicle out of the kill zone fast. Had he frozen up, he wouldn’t have survived.
Almost half the shots connected to the rear of the pickup because the shooters didn’t have the chance to get parallel to the vehicle before firing.
But judging by the way one bullet hit the top of his car seat--where his head rested just a few seconds before--the killers were fairly good. Thankfully, Nestor had better survival instincts.
Whatever the motive, I hope the PNP can crack this case and crack it soon. The entire shooting community, I am sure, wants to see the responsible people arrested and charged.
I hope this incident will not have the same ending as the shooting of businessman Baby Yu of Casey Gun Club. Yu was shot while withdrawing money from an ATM outside Gaisano Tabunok. He was hit in the spine and the assailant remains on the loose.
Surviving an ambush is one of the things taught at Kamagong Gun Club’s Basic Defensive Pistol Course—a 10-session free training the club gives to all its members. Each session lasts a total of three hours and is held every Saturday.
A lot of people have taken the class that is facilitated by the club’s chief instructor, Dr. Tyrone Mercader, including radio broadcaster and ambush survivor Cirse “Choy” Torralba.
When shot from inside a vehicle, members are taught to speed away rather than stay and shoot back. By speeding away, the assailants are deprived of a stationary target and are forced to stop shooting, or at the very least slow down, to reposition their angle of fire.
Only when forced by circumstance—when the car is immobilized by one reason or another—is shooting back encouraged.
Torralba, during his ambush, shot back from inside his immobilized car and survived with only wounds to the arm. Torralba, however, only took the Kamagong classes after the ambush incident.
Query. I got a call from Bobby Lozada and an e-mail from Brian Cordevilla (becube@gmail.com) last week.
Bobby wanted to know about the Kimber Eclipse. Well, this exquisite handgun came out about the same time the Kimber Raptor was released. It was judged the Handgun of the Year by the US-based Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence for 2005.
The gun is a single-stack 19-11 cut from stainless steel but given a durable matte black oxide coat. All flat surfaces are later brush polished, leaving all insert and curved surfaces in matte black while the rest of the gun shines in polished stainless gray. The duo tone gives the gun it’s name – the Eclipse.
Internally, it bores little difference to the Raptor. Externally, however, they stand a world apart. The Raptor features lizard scales-like checkering that gives it a rather dark and doomsday appearance. The Eclipse, on the other hand, looks like something designed to match one’s most expensive Versace suit.
Brian is more concerned about the price. They actually cost almost the same. The Raptor costs a few dollars more at $1,049.99 as compared to the Eclipse which has a tag of $1,029.99. Rates are from Impact Guns of Ogden, Utah.
