WE HAVE a gun control problem. Everywhere. For example, Friday last week in Barangay Ticud, La Paz, Iloilo City two lads were shot dead at a birthday party/drinking binge and the celebrator himself got wounded. The suspects were their drinking buddies. There was some misunderstanding that led to the fatal shooting. In the first place, why did they have guns? Where did they get them? Were they even licensed?
Every now and then, some men go amok shooting to death relatives and neighbors or taking innocents hostage. Especially in the provinces, thousands of loose firearms are in the hands of private armies, bandits and rebels.
With the 2022 elections drawing near, we are all the more concerned. Local elections in many hotspots tend to be bloody, deadly, and often involved unlicensed firearms. Remember the election eve ambush in Balasan, Iloilo five years ago in 2016 that killed two supporters of a mayoral candidate?
The election gun ban and checkpoints siphon away some of the loose firearms, but little is known about whether those caught ever get prosecuted and convicted.
Remember Dr. Dreyfuss Perlas of the Doctors to the Barrios program? This young Aklanon physician – the municipal health officer of Sapad, Lanao del Norte – died on March 1, 2017. He was shot dead after he had just come from a medical mission in Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte.
On the streets and in homes in Metro Manila and other densely-populated areas, we have near-daily occurrence of fatal shooting incidents involving neighbors and suspected drug dealers and runners.
What’s the government doing about this? To say that the situation is alarming is an understatement. Riding-in-tandem gun-toting assassins appear to be everywhere. We can cite more examples. What is clear, though, is that we lack stricter gun control laws and enforcement. Guns seem to be proliferating like shabu, accessible to anyone.
