Wednesday, April 02, 2008 Rama: Custom Fun Shoot for the benefit of the cops By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
POLICE and civilian shooters alike will gather in Lapu-Lapu City on Sunday as the 2nd District Collector of Customs Fun Shoot kicks off at the CPRA Shooting Range.
It’s an open-to-all shoot-for-a-cause organized by the Customs Employees-Brokers Union and aims to raise money to buy tactical gear for the Cebu City Swat Team and motorcycles for the precincts of the Cebu City Police Office.
Rico Mongaya, who sits in the organizing committee, said they expect over 100 shooters from the civilian sector alone. They are already assured of participation from the PNP.
Registration is P600 for civilian shooters and half that for junior division participants and people from the law enforcement community.
Action unfolds in six straightforward stages.
Course of Fire. Stage one and two are medium courses. Stage one has seven paper and two metal targets to be shot from a port while stage two has six targets to be shot while sitting behind a desk with three penalty targets partially obscuring the line of sight.
Stage three is a long course that will force a shooter to engage 12 paper targets while maneuvering along a corridor and then shoot two more paper targets, three metal plates and a popper from behind a port.
Stage four is another long course, composed of three strings, and requires shooters to engage targets from ports, doorways and corridors. Organizers aren’t using movers in the match.
A medium course, stage five requires shooters to fire at 12 paper targets from doorways and a port while stage six is a speed-shoot that offers a activating popper, two paper targets and two round plates.
The match will have three categories—Regular, Tyro (for Bureau of Customs people and the brokers only) and the Team event.
Civilian shooters and police officers not joining the team competition belong to the regular shooters category.
For the victors. A total of 24 trophies will be up for grabs in the entire event that opens at 9 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m.
Five of these are championship trophies and will be awarded to the highest scoring athlete in the Open, Standard Hi-Cap, Standard Single-Stack, Revolver and Production divisions.
The other four are for the first runners-up in the Open, Standard Hi-Cap, Standard Single-Stack and Production divisions and the remaining three for the two standard sub-divisions and the production match.
In the Tyro event, six trophies – one each for the champion and first runner-up in the Standard and Production divisions – are on the line, as well as some other special prizes.
For the team event, two motorcycles are at stake. One will go to the top-scoring team representing a special unit – Swat, Homcide, TRS, Mobile Patrol Division, etc. The other cruiser bike will go to the precinct that sends the highest scoring team.
“We organized this originally to promote camaraderie among people within the law enforcement arm of the Bureau of Customs,” said Mongaya of the first District Collector’s Cup.
“It just sort of gained support from people outside who thought it would be fun. And with the union taking over the preparation, it is no longer just a fun-shoot but a shoot-for-a-cause,” he said of this Sunday’s competition.
To further up the ante, the organizers had the match sanctioned by the Philippine Practical Shooting Association as a Level 1 event.
Expected to grace the event are Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Deputy Collector Shirley Abarintos, District Collector Ricardo Belmonte, City Councilor Jack Jakosalem, Senior Supt. Patrociño Comendador of the Cebu City Police Office and Rico Rey Francis Holganza.
Personal. Three of the 1,289 new lawyers who successfully hurdled the 2007 bar exams are my personal friends. Two used to be with the media – Anna Fiona Bojos of Sun.Star Cebu and Maria Jeannette Japzon of The Freeman. The third, Orville dela Cerna, is my wife’s batchmate at the University of San Carlos Department of Psychology. Salute.
