Tuesday, July 01, 2008 Speak out: Unheeded warning By Percival dela Torre
ALTHOUGH I don’t know them from Adam, I would like to extend my heartfelt sympathy to the parents of the 14-year-old boy who was accidentally killed by a barangay tanod who was reportedly chasing and shooting an alleged drunk man at the Carbon public market (Sun.Star Cebu, 17th June 2008).
As correctly pointed out by your paper, the incident raises the problem of barangay tanods keeping and carrying unlicensed guns sans adequate training and permit to carry.
To recall, the president of Cebu City’s Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) proposed that barangay tanods be allowed to carry guns whilst performing their duties considering that nowadays there are many loose firearms in the hands of the criminally-minded (Sun.Star Cebu , 20th March 2008).
Accordingly, I wrote an opinion in reaction thereto that saw print in your paper’s issue of 2nd April 2008 in which I put forward rules and regulations that need to be adopted for strict compliance by the barangays to prevent misuse of the privilege of barangay tanods to carry firearms.
Needless to say, it appears my unsolicited advice either was not appreciated or went entirely unnoticed by the concerned barangay official(s).
Had the ABC initiated the disarming of all barangay tanods in the meantime that these individuals have not yet been given psychological/drug tests as well as training in the proper handling of guns which I recommended, among others, the above untoward incident most likely would not have happened.
Now they are talking about training these tanods in gun-safety handling which is an implicit admission that tanods have been tolerated to bear guns without having been given appropriate orientation to prevent innocent bystanders from being maimed or killed.
Sad to say, what we have here is the failure of barangay officials to exercise the diligence of a good father of the family by getting off the ground timely/relevant suggestions which are intended to keep the people in the community out of harm’s way.
Indeed, this is typical of those in public service, with a few exception of course, to merely react instead of being proactive in dealing with situations that are inimical to the common good.
