Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Rama: Of missed deadlines and red-letter days By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
I MISSED the deadline for last Monday’s column due to the unpredictable nature of airline travel—the Cebu Pacific flight to Bacolod City left on time last Sunday when I so desperately needed it to be late.
Had I made it to the 8:05 a.m. flight, I’d have been in the City of Smiles in less than an hour and had more than enough time to fire away at the laptop to finish a piece with an eternity left to tour the city’s sights, including Lacson Street by night.
Instead, I had to take a cab from the airport to the South Bus Terminal and take the eight-hour Ceres Liner ride that brought me to Tabuelan town in Northern Cebu and then aboard a barge to Escalante, a town in the western side of Negros Island.
I reached Bacolod at half past five in the afternoon, just in time for why I went there to start with—to attend a meeting to form the Visayas Chapter of the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network (Pecojon).
And while the meeting went well, it was way past the deadline by the time it was over.
ESKRIMA SEMINAR. Stickfighters from eight countries, together with practitioners from the Philippines, converged in Cebu City last week to attend a three-day martial arts gathering hosted by the Cacoy Doce Pares Eskrima.
Grand Master Ciriaco “Cacoy” Cañete headed the seminar, which opened at the Cebu Sports Club, along the posh Cebu Business Park, last Friday.
The event was highlighted with the 2008 Doce Pares Hall of Fame installation ceremony held Saturday night at the Holiday Plaza Hotel.
Thirteen athletes from Australia, one from England, two from Germany, one from Indonesia, two from Mexico, one from New Zealand, nine from the Philippines, one from Poland and 34 from the United States were installed.
Dan Inosanto, the training partner of Bruce Lee, was among the awardees and was given the Doce Pares Lifetime Achievement Award along with Richard Bustillo who was recognized as the Most Notable Doce Pares Grand Master for 2008.
MANUNGGAL PASS. After its successful hosting of Operation Southern Cross 3, the Airsoft group Team EMC is undertaking yet another military simulation games, the Battle of Manunggal Pass.
The event will kick off in Gaas, Balamban this Saturday and is held to commemorate the 51st death anniversary of former president Ramon Magsaysay.
Participating teams will take on the shoes of an elite rescue squad sent to locate and rescue Lt. Bayani, a downed Philippine Air Force pilot.
Bayani was shot down while on an anti-drug surveillance mission to locate a marijuana plantation in Mt. Manunggal together with two Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (Pdea) agents.
He was able to survive the crash and confirmed, via a short radio message to the Tactical Operations Center of his Wing, the death of the two Pdea agents.
The TOC, however, then lost radio contact with Lt. Bayani.
Moreover, a military asset in Manunggal confirmed that he is now in the custody of the drug cartel, hence the rescue mission.
The rescue squad, with the help of the asset, must now locate the camp where Lt. Bayani is being held and bring him home.
They must be on their toes, however, as the camp and the area around it are guarded by a platoon-sized force of the cartel.
However, the camp itself may only have a few guards while the rest are on patrol.
Organizers are inviting photographers to take part in the event.
They will be attached to the participating squads as embedded journalists. The photos they take, said Architect Ramon Vios, can be submitted as entries in a photo contest also being conducted as part of the event.
