GUNS OF AUGUST

ON SEPTEMBER 28, THE PROHIBITION on firearms will again start. This is necessitated by the coming elections on October 28, 2013 of village officials on the whole of the Philippines. This blogger was contracted to teach a BASIC GUN SAFETY AND FIREARMS PROFICIENCY TRAINING to all security guards assigned with Sky Rise 1 and Sky Rise 2. Both buildings employ a total of 35 male and female guards and are located at the Asiatown IT Park, Cebu City.

I have done this live-fire training exercises before to some guards of Tactical Security Agency, Inc., especially to those assigned at Cebu Grand Hotel, Oro China Jewelry, KIA Motors and Autowelt BMW Cebu; as well as that agency’s security officers and office staff. I will not be doing the teaching anymore though but I have passed this aspect to SPO1 Fredilson Codilla, a very able firing range instructor and a police officer of good refute.

I have the last half of August to schedule this in three batches and I view it as too precarious considering that other people will likely troop to firing ranges at the last hour or, possibly, ongoing tournaments are still on schedule on some of the popular ones. That is where the knowledge of SPO1 Codilla about certain firing ranges come in handy since he is utilized by most tournament organizers as a range officer.

Buoyed up by a vacant schedule for two weeks on a firing range that have been temporarily closed for repairs, we both set the schedule for the first batch at August 17. Eight male and two female security guards try their hands on the different firearms used like revolvers, pistols and a shotgun. Each individual are allocated 25 rounds for caliber .38 and and another set for 9x19mm and two rounds each for 12-gauge. Safety goggles and ear muffs are provided as well as IPSC cardboard targets.

SPO1 Codilla taught the participants the basics of gun safety, stance, balance, holding, sighting, breathing, squeezing and certain techniques to make movement transitions easy and effortless. Firing range sponsor, Aljew Frasco, later came to give important inputs to the participants. After that, a firing demo were performed by Mr. Frasco, SPO1 Codilla, this blogger and the agency’s recruitment and training officer, Joe Patrick Uy.

The second batch is scheduled on August 23 and were participated by seven male and three female security guards. All were exposed to the same lectures that SPO1 Codilla had on the first batch and all had learned and improved their gun know-how. The last batch of twelve male and three female security guards capped off the program on August 26.

On the whole, SG Alfredo Siarot Jr garnered the highest score of 98.80, SG Mark Anthony Malabosa followed second at 84.64 while LG Femaeline Inoc took third and the highest score for the female side at 75.72. The collage of images shows the activities of August 17, 23 and 26 and the whole program itself:

Document done in LibreOffice 3.3 Writer