June 7,2012 A Rare Incident: One Bullet Hits Three Persons By Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.

Ozamis City, Misamis Occidental-A stray bullet allegedly coming from one of the ROTC cadets long rifle dubbed as Springfield during a sham battle inside the school campus hit two ROTC cadets and a female high school student who happened to pas s by accompanied by her father. This unusual incident happened when I was either a third year or fourth year in high school at the Immaculate Conception College in Ozamis City where I grew up. We lived inside the compound of my grand-uncle (Lolo Jose) at Gomez St., brgy. Lam-an, this city. One sunny Saturday morning I decided to go to the ICC school campus to watch a s ham battle among more or less 400 ROTC cadets. Their wee ly sham battle is being conducted in preparation for the annual tactical inspection to be jointly condu cted by the ROTC and the AFP high ran ing officers. As in several sham battles in the past years, ROTC cadets under the supervision of their platoon leaders and the commander used live bullets minus the slugs. It is substituted by anything soft to cover the cartridges to ma e it harmless. Bu llets of 50 caliber machinegun were li ewise devoid of slugs and li e the bullet s, soft cartoons were placed to avoid the powder from spilling. The ROTC cadets during the duration of their four-year course were taught almost all the ind of training soldiers at the Armed Forces of the Philippines have u nderwent. Li e the proper and s illful handling of their guns and other ammuniti ons, how to load the cartridges in a particular rifles/guns, identification of t he ind of bullet that a certain ammunition should have. The cadets were also taught how to dismantle their rifles and machinegun includi ng identification of its parts.Tests among the cadets was conducted from time to time by their platoon leaders on how to dismantle a rifle quic ly and how to pu t its parts of the rifle in its proper place. Their physical trainings already loo ed li e real soldiers. During sham battle w hether its sunny or rainy days, they would crawled on the muddy grounds as their commander or platoon leaders fired shots up in the air. They seemed to be on the offensive move to conquer or overrun an enemy camp. On some occasions the cadet s would ran around and crawled as if moving in advance towards an enemy strongho ld .A machine gunner then would rapid fire as the cadets continued moving close to the enemies. However, in that Saturday morning while I was standing near a pine tree adjacent to the churchs stairs, a big bang echoed inside the nearby parochial building. R ight there 2 ROTC cadets were hit by a stray bullet believed to be coming from o ne of the rifles among the tired cadets resting inside the edifice after a sham battle. I was rooted on from where I stood. I could not move right away. I was shoc ed. It was something unusual. No-one in Ozamis has ever witnessed such ind of incid ent in the past years. Where can you find a Garand rifle whose bullet with long sharp slug is capable of hitting a person on target one ilometer away from his assassin or sniper? But in that rare accidental event in Ozamis City, which I consider as my second

home, that ind of bullet did not go far to victimize unexpectedly 3 persons. T hat was an extraordinary occurrence thats hard to be repeated even for perhaps a century. The right foot of a cadet wearing a rubber shoes was hit first. The appearance o f his white rubber shoe showed that the bones were shattered. Another cadet was hit on his left leg. The bullet penetrated the flesh and the long slug landed on the stomach of a passing high school female student who was accompanied by her father. I was just a few meters away from where the young girl was hit. The three victims were rushed to the hospital. The right foot of the first victi m was inevitably amputated because the bro en bones could no longer be reassembl ed by an orthopedic surgeon. The second victim with no bone fracture was treatment for his wound. If on wal i ng he would be aided with crutches. The third victim undergone an emergency oper ation and was saved from her critical condition. As some onloo ers were frightened of what they saw, the ROTC Commander hollered at his men to assemble quic ly without conducting individual inspection of the c adets rifles. After they have converged, he ordered them to return their guns in the armory. All of the cadets went bac to the huge ground and reassembled thems elves into several platoons. If investigations were ever conducted pertaining to that incident, I do not now exactly until I have graduated as a wor ing student in high school, if ever the culprit was discovered. The common belief and consensus at that time was that the un nown ROTC suspect m ight allegedly have a grudge towards an officer or a co-cadet. That the squeezin g of the trigger loaded with a live bullet at that instance was unintentional. A nd that the act was caused as a negative reaction to something jolting. Or that the suspect was playing with his rifle, forgetting perhaps that it was loaded wi th a live bullet. Perchance, that sad incident might be one of the reasons why college ROTC cadets for several years now in various colleges are only carrying wooden rifles. Im wo ndering what these cadets are learning from wooden guns that are devoid of funct ional parts? Some colleges/universities in the country have stopped offering ROTC course due to an incident happened several years ago to an ROTC cadet who reportedly died o f torture in one of a well- nown universities in Manila. Nevertheless, its not good if some colleges/universities in the country would sto p offering ROTC course. This subject is vitally important for college students t o have a course in military training. We need our college students to acquire th e s ill and nowledge in guns and ammunition handling in preparation for their f ormal and enhancement of military training in the Philippine Army. ROTC cadets during the four-year duration of their training should be equipped w ith real guns and weapons. The carrying of wooden rifles must be discontinued ev en if the ROTC cadets are only marching on the streets as part of a schools parti cipation during a particular celebration or anniversary. They are no longer high school students who were only allowed to carry wooden gu ns/rifles, just li e what we did before as PMT cadets. To avoid a repeat of such a sad and traumatic event, the one deterrent measure in preventing accidental firing of real bullet is to have stricter rules and reg

ulations. Platoon leaders and other ROTC officers should always chec /inspect ea ch cadets rifle/gun to see if it was loaded with live bullet or not. Aside from t heir guns, other possible places to put an extra live bullet must also be inspec ted/chec ed li e poc ets, wallets, shoes, hats.Or anything worthy and suitable f or inspection and chec ing prior to the start of a sham battle. This ind of procedure should be carried out and followed conscientiously as an outstanding policy in all colleges and universities throughout the country. Laxi ty in implementing this standard rule should not be given a room as life is at s ta e here in this ind of course.(Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.)