Karlon N. Rama
Stage Five

A PHONE call jolted me away a few minutes past midnight last week.

The call came from a Chinese businessman friend whose home had just been invaded by two men about an hour before.

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The incident resulted to a standoff between the two men, who had locked themselves inside the maids’s quarters in my friend’s home, and my friend and his son, a shooting protégé who has won more pistol-shooting trophies than I can count.

The crisis lasted several tense minutes and was resolved only with the arrival of operatives from the Cebu City Police Office, including some who were my friend’s range buddies, who forcibly took the two intruders into custody.

Things could have turned ugly really quick had the police not arrived because, my friend shared, he was critically concerned for the safety of his wheelchair -bound wife who was in their master’s bedroom which, in turn, was not far from the maids’s quarters.

So much so, my friend added, that he and his son already made the conscious decision of terminating the intruders if they tried to leave the room they had trapped themselves in and make their way to the master’s bedroom.

They were, in my friend’s own words, ready for everything—guns loaded, chambered and with the safeties off.

Given the facts, and all things being equal, I don’t think society would have condemned my friend or his son if the incident had turned lethal.

Charges would probably have been filed as a matter of course but, if the intruders carried out something that falls within the category of unlawful aggression—perhaps like trying to enter the master’s bedroom with my friend’s ill wife—I am sure my friend’s lawyers could mount up a solid legal claim of justifiable homicide.

Philippine criminal law exempts from criminal liability a person who defends himself by taking the life of an unlawful aggressor. Lawyers cite Article 11 of the Revised Penal Code.

But what was really worrisome to me about the incident was how the intruders managed to enter my friend’s home, which is located in a subdivision that was not even 10 minutes of brisk walking away from my own home, high walls notwithstanding.

Apparently, my friend said, the intruders made “special friends” with his maids and got the maids to sneak themselves into the house in the middle of the night, perhaps to do the horizontal mambo, and make off with some prized stuff.

My friend said this did not seem to be the first time the maids allowed other people into the house, adding that they’ve noticed lots of small but expensive items in the house disappear over the past several weeks.

People can make their homes as structurally secure as possible, erecting high perimeter fences topped off with barbed wire and guard dogs, but when maids throws the gates open to strangers, a homeowner is effectively screwed.

Even banks, with all their security gizmos and gadgets, fall easy prey to inside jobs.

Nearly disastrous for the intruders but lucky for my friend, he and his son had stayed up late that night and noticed two shadows lurking in the corridors.

MAIL CALL. Francis Delvo (splinter_cell_21@hotmail.com) dropped us a line a few days ago to ask about firearm laws governing the ownership of short barreled rifles or carbines, bolt action rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and large-bored handguns and rifles among private citizens.

He also wrote to inquire about something others have asked in the past – just how many firearms can a private citizen legally own.

I’m running out of space here, Francis, but, I will definitely have something for you in our next issue. Until then, keep safe and have a fun day at the range.

(knrama@gmail.com)