Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on October 6, 2009

SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2009. I went to the Mandaue City Reclamation Area to watch an ongoing airsoft battle on an open lot nearby the Cebu Doctor's University. It is my first time to see an airsoft event. I saw grown-up men running; their rattling plastic weapons spewing off plastic pellets at opponents. The ground is very muddy but they were very serious with their game. I was quite amused and I shook my head unable to believe seeing “aggressive” grown-up people doing things that only children used to do.

I was wondering what were their past time during their childhood years? What sort of games did they play as a child and what kind of neighborhood where they were reared in? I'm not sure if this bunch of men are late bloomers yet, I was wondering also if they have experienced our old-school war games?

Then and there, nostalgia visited me. I played war games when I was of elementary age. At those years, my aggressive nature where already harnessed. Boys of my age or older, when I was able, urged me to join them in “battles” against another group of boys a block away. Neighborhood were pitted against another neighborhood and there were many many ways to play a war – depending on the season.

In October, when young bamboo shoots are sturdy enough after the first rains, we make pop guns with it. Small strips of wet paper balled to fit inside the hole of the native pop gun are used as bullets. It pops out one paper pellet at a time and then you retreat and take cover to reload while another would take your place. A balled wet paper will hurt and sting your skin if the air pressure pushing it is just right. It will even hurt you more if a very itchy seed of a certain plant is used as projectile.

This same bamboo pop guns with large bores are used to squirt water at opponents when caught unawares. Water most often used are either those laced with red pepper or from a canal or, worse, urine. In the heat of the battle, some boys will use the bamboo rod that pops the paper out and use it as a dagger in retaliation or when cornered. When pinned down, you have to wriggle and fight your way out. Rescue missions are rare in those times...READ MORE (Press CTRL + mouse click)