Patintero

                The days I spend during my childhood were awesome and fun. I can still recall the time when I try to sneak out of my room during nap time in order to play games with the neighborhood children. One of the games I usually play back during childhood is the game called patintero.

                The patintero game is performed by two opposing teams with equal members. Each team has their own roles in the game. The first team would be the “runners” while the other team would take up the role as “taggers”.

                A horizontal-vertical grid is drawn on the ground using a chalk or a marker where each tagger positioned their selves. The number of the horizontal grids is equal to the number of members of the team.

                The game is initiated with a toss of a coin or another game called Jack en Poy (another traditional game I will write about in my next blog). Whoever wins becomes the “runner” and whoever loses becomes the tagger.

                All the runners’ aim is to pass through from the starting line down to the end line and back again without getting caught. The taggers will also do their task acting as line guards on each horizontal line, stopping and catching any runners to pass through. If any runner is caught, the whole team loses and performs the position of the taggers and the taggers now take turn as runners.

                At the end of the game, lessons are learned that without unity and teamwork, the whole team could lose.

               

`