In defense of airsoft

I guess it’s my fault I can’t stop myself talking about airsofting.  I ask just about anyone to join us the next time we play.  I try hard to make them believe it is a good form of exercise and stress-buster and it is not really that expensive to play.

            These past weeks I knew my big mouth was getting me into trouble when a colleague asked me more than once about it.  She was not at all interested about joining us; she simply disapproved.

            In a discussion today about combatting liberalism she blurted (sort of) airsofting is not in keeping with an, erm, an activist’s lifestyle.  You know, simple life-hard struggle and all that.  She mentioned other reasons why the topic was suddenly on the table.  I said the “other” reasons she cited may have merit but I definitely do not agree that airsofting is not in keeping with an activist’s ideal lifestyle.

            Let me state my reasons:

1. It is not expensive to play airsoft.  To play basketball in a private court is much more expensive.  A hundred peso gamesite entrance fee allows me to play from morning to dusk.  A 48-minute basketball game in our subdivision’s covered court costs PhP150 every game.  I am not even talking about tennis or golf or even billiards here. 
2. My AEG cost me PhP3,500.00 late last year, which is my single biggest expense.  Should an activist have that much disposable income?  In most cases, no.  But the money I spent there was a Christmas gift to me by friends and family just for me to pick up a sport (everyone thinks I am already too fat to be cute still).  Is that too much for me to get started on a sport that interests me? Hell, no!
3. Other airsoft gear could be had cheaply.  My padded long-sleeved shirt is a hundred pesos and my vest is three hundred from Fort Bonifacio’s Commissary.  I looked for merchandise with factory defects and bargained shamelessly like my mother.  My cargo pants cost two-fifty from Commonwealth Market’s Ukay Paradise.  It had a size 39 waist and so I had it repaired by the neighborhood tailor for thirty pesos.  My hat was a gift from a former volunteer.  One could buy and use carpentry goggles instead of an Oakley eyepiece.  Match that with a “Baguio City” baklava and you are set.  My shoes were given to me by a former volunteer.  My knee and elbow pads cost three hundred from Pier.  One does not have to buy a BDU from Hahn-Manila.  Do the math. A basketball shoe could outfit an entire airsoft team; a Big Bertha putter could launch a weekend tournament. 
4. To save some more, we bring drinking water and packed lunch, mostly kaning lamig and dinner leftovers.  We don’t buy, hangga’t kaya.
5. We are BB misers.  We do not fire unless we see the “enemy” and we are sure to hit them.  We even pick unused pellets from plinking areas.  (Kawawa, ano?)
6. I enjoy the game so much, I feel cheated when I played less than ten games in a day.  I am so frustrated if I am taken out of the game early by a “lucky shot.” I always look forward to our next game date.
7. You should see me run or climb stairs just to get a better position than the “Tango” at the start of each game.  Think Chito Loyzaga outsprinting Elmer Reyes in a fastbreak.  The last time I ran that fast was when I was carrying the command flag in a rally in front of the Old Congress Building and we were being chased by the police—14 damned years ago!

     And what do I get from all this?

A lot—not least of all is the ability to outrun the police desperately wanting to bash my head with truncheons.