Friday, August 31, 2007 Malilong: Guard’s sense of civic duty By Frank Malilong The Other Side
WE have to doff our hat to the Boholanos.
They succeeded where we have miserably failed: bust the robbery gang that has become notorious for repeatedly tweaking the nose of our policemen and security guards. Never mind that the gang’s leader and most, if not all, of its members are also Boholanos.
Recall that when the La Nueva supermarket was robbed, a police detachment was only a shout away. Also that the establishment’s security guard ran scared because he knew he didn’t stand a chance if he engaged the robbers in a shootout.
Mercifully, that did not happen when the Tagbilaran branch of the Bank of Commerce was robbed. The bank’s guards and another one posted nearby shot it out with the robbers. Within hours of the bloody encounter, the Bohol police had four of the brigands, including their leader, locked up in jail.
The success in arresting the elusive Casimero “Meloy” Garcia and dismantling his gang did not, of course, come cheap. A security guard died in the exchange of gunfire while two others were wounded, one of them critically, according to news reports.
We have had our own share of guards who laid down their lives in defense of the property of their agency’s clients. My sympathy goes out to them and their families. In most cases, however, guards don’t offer even token resistance, meekly obeying orders from the criminals.
Of course, self-preservation is a natural impulse, in fact, a thinking man’s rational choice. When you’re outnumbered or are poorly equipped or trained, the sane thing to do is to follow the bandits’ orders or hide or run away. Can you imagine confronting an enemy bristling with high-powered weapons with only a revolver that you’re not even sure would fire?
It’s a pity since, as a police official said, the security guards are part of their support group because they share the same goal of protecting lives. It’s a potent support group if only for its size (29,000 in Central Visayas) but it has not lived up to its potential because its members suffer from inadequacy of equipment and training.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the guards should be properly trained so that they are able to fight back instead of meekly giving way to robbery.
I’d like to add that they should also be adequately armed.
Of course, as the Bohol experience has shown, one doesn’t have to be on equal footing with the robbers in firepower in order to at least derail them. It was the security guard of a nearby establishment who wounded one of the robbers. His own post was not under any threat but he came to the assistance of his fellow guards just the same.
That’s what you call a sense of civic duty. If we could only teach plenty of that to our guards.
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On a lighter note, we are taught that even the devil is not incapable of quoting the Scripture. But Meloy’s reported claim that his capture was the will of God really caught me flatfooted.
He reminded me of colleague Froilan Quijano’s story about the husband who was caught by his wife while he was dancing with his GRO girlfriend in a bar.
He hurriedly left the dance floor to his car, asking his wife to follow him.
When she was inside the car, he raised his head towards the heavens, made the sign of the cross and murmured: “I have long been praying for this moment to come so I can stop womanizing. Thank you, Lord for finally listening to my prayer!”
