Long time ago, at the immediate years after World War ll, the age of the SUMPAK flourished.  Only few of the older generation can recall and much less or none at all of the younger generation will know about it.
 
            The SUMPAK was usually made of a piece of bamboo shoot with about an inch diameter bore cut from between the nodes.  The projectile used was the KATIMPO plant that abounded at the edges of rice paddies.  This katimpo plant produced globules or pellet like seeds that could be perfectly stuffed inside the SUMPAK barrel without any air leakage through the cylinder wall.  The ballistic action of the katimpo was accomplished by pushing a piece of bamboo rod with a diameter less than the barrel  bore of the SUMPAK with a cloth  or leather at its tip for a better vacuum effect.   The harder the push of the bamboo rod, the farther and harder was the impact of the projectile katimpo. The bamboo push rod's handle was made from the same piece where the barrel was cut from. The SUMPAK was used like a musket without the gunpowder.
 
            In Barrio Sta. Monica and San Jose in the town of Hagonoy of the province of Bulacan, where I grew up, I could recall with nostalgia some of our childish epic battles and skirmishes using the SUMPAK as weapons of war.  I would say this youthful game was chivalrous in practice and gentlemanly in manner.  Every one had to abide to the unwritten yet accepted rules of combat.  No one should be hurt.  Everyone could shout and rejoice when scoring a hit on the opponent.  A hit was counted when a green mark appeared on the body or shirt.  A direct full hit was only a mild sting at worst. There was a defined battlefield, usually a creek or an irrigation canal and no one could conquer or overran a territory.  The combatants were groups from different parts of the barrio usually compose of relatives, friends and classmates, all of whom knew each other somehow or another.  Those boyish mock battles were friendly contests.
 
However, as years went by, the katimpo plant started to banish without any apparent reason.  So also gone was the apulid, the substitute staple to rice during the World War ll and after years.  The bamboo was still there but the friendly battles using katimpo projectiles were slowly replaced with thrown mud and stone and soon the slingshot came to take over.  The slingshot with stones and ball bearing escalated to arrows and deadly darts.  And with morality on its low ebb, guns started to make their appearance.
 
And thus the age of chivalry as I knew it, came to an inglorious end and only to be remembered in the memory of some aging men like me.

Munting Nayon News Magazine