Armed, not necessarily dangerous

Before anything else, let me greet the good people of Liloan, Metro Cebu a Happy Fiesta.  Sr. San Fernando Rey has showered us with his blessings the past year and we continue to ask for his intercession for more blessings and guidance as we move on and face the realities of life.

This day also belongs to Aljew Frasco.  Happy Birthday!  Don’t think about the age or growing older.  Think about this - the more birthdays we have, the longer we live, the more chances we have to enjoy and appreciate life and be grateful, thankful to the people around us who made our existence meaningful.

Likewise, congratulations to the winners of the Rosquillos Festival Street Dancing and Ritual Showdown competition and to the Rosquillos Festival Queen held the other day.  To the men and women who handled the event, there were hitches along the way but in the end, all the hard work and frustrations were justified.  Congratulations to all of you for a job very well done.          

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I suppose majority of my full-blooded male 'suki' readers would readily agree that as a little boy, we grew up with toy guns, playing cowboys-and-indians, good guys versus bad guys and doing imaginary camp sites on our beds with pillows borrowed from other bedrooms as bunkers to shield us from imaginary bullets.

We were creative then, that when our playmates can’t afford to have the fancy plastics toy guns, we made do with palm stalks or bamboo slats with two shorter lengths tied with twine made to look like pistol grips and magazines.  You get the idea.

Summer time, we would be at Oslob to spend vacation with my uncle, Fr. Jose, who was then the parish priest there.  My brother Rene and I would then raid the CAT armory of the nearby St. Mary’s Academy and choose a few of the lightest and smoothest wooden Garand reproduction, smuggle it back to the convent and have our uncle’s driver sort of modify it by chopping the barrel, attach a 2x4 as a magazine and saw off the stock.  Instant assault rifle.  We would then pick two or three boys, issue them the modified weapons and be part of our squad.

The convent, before it was burned, was big, as well as the church grounds and we would have great afternoons getting our throats hoarse shouting “Bang! Bang!”  We would stray into the yard where the livestock were kept and aside from the bang-bangs, we would also be dodging all the “landmines” scattered by the animals.  If the enemy refuses to “die”, one or two of us faces the line of fire and declares, “Igo na ka, patay na ka!  Tikasan!”.  Then the other camp fires back at us and also declares, “Bang! Patay pud ka!”  There will be a ceasefire, and a 15-minute argument follows.

As to the school CAT commandant’s tantrum and the nuns’ disbelief upon discovery of our military invasion, only my late uncle knew, as by the time the deed was known, we were already back in Liloan. 

During childhood, we mostly play in make believe and all those war stuff are imaginary, sometimes we have invisible foes if the playmates are not around.  Imagination is the mother of all creations and we tend to do things that usually invite hypertension to our parents.  Yes, imagination has no limits.

What’s my point in this play gun stuff?   A good number of people think that children growing up oriented with toy guns are likely to become violent.  I beg to disagree.  It is all in the upbringing, the peers we have and the environment around us.  A gun, in all its perfect lonesome, is harmless.  It changes its status as soon as somebody irresponsible handles it.

With all the news we hear and read about random acts of shootings, I strongly believe that to protect our home and loved ones, it would be logical to arm ourselves and members of our family, in the most legal way and learn the proper ways of handling and keeping a firearm. 

It would also be advisable to let our spouses and children know how to handle and use a firearm.  Why?  At least if we’re not around when unexpected things happen, we will be comforted with the thought that they would know what to do to protect themselves.   Of course, I would never pray and ask that the precautions we’re having will never be put to the test.

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