Army official outshoots bets in ‘Battle of the Generals’

An Army general outperformed other police and military officials who participated in a shooting competition dubbed the “Battle of the Generals” held at Camp Crame the whole day yesterday.

Brig. Gen. Rolando Detabali, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deputy chief for operations, emerged as overall champion in the five-stage shooting game.

AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Avelino Razon also participated in all the events but failed to land in the top slots.

“The next time, it will be mortar and cannons,” Esperon joked.

Aside from being declared as overall champion in the handgun category, Detabali also won in the semi-automatic shotgun and M-16 rifle categories.

Detabali was also declared as overall champion in the aggregate category, followed by PNP Deputy Director General Jesus Verzosa, Chief Superintendent Mario San Diego, Chief Superintendent Pedro Tango, Commodore Rico Borromeo, Brig. Gen. Ireneo Espino, Chief Superintendents Leonilo de la Cruz, Samuel Pagdilao, Luisito Palmera and Raul Castaneda.

Placing second to Detabali in the handgun category were Espino and Castenda, director of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

In the shotgun pump category, the PNP team outshot their military counterparts, with San Diego emerging as champion followed by De la Cruz, with Commodore Orlando Pestano of the AFP team placing third.

Director German Doria and Palmera were declared first and second runners-up, respectively, in the shotgun semi-automatic category, which was also dominated by Detabali.

The AFP generals garnered more points than their PNP counterparts and were declared the day’s winning team.

National shooter Chief Superintendent Benjamin Belarmino, the country’s international shooting champion, did not participate in the event apparently to level the playing the field.

Belarmino spearheaded the PNP  team’s winning bid to become the overall champion in the AFP-PNP  shooting competition held at the firing range of Department of National  Defense (DND) at Camp Aguinaldo earlier this year.

Yesterday’s competition was launched to help hone the shooting skills of police and military generals who would be participating international shooting competition to be held at Clark Field in Pampanga tomorrow.