Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Rama: Of parties, shoots, and taped guns By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
IT is a busy December for the gun clubs in Cebu, with each holding or having held parties for members to celebrate both the season and the year that is fast closing.
Front Sight Gun Club, based in Minglanilla and headed by Supt. Efren Nemeño, warden of the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC), had theirs at the Golden Peak Hotel last night.
The shooting circuit is also in full swing.
Cebu City’s Kamagong Gun Club hosted one match last Dec. 14, three days before the club’s well-attended Christmas fellowship party at Leonardo’s, a resto-bar run by club member Jojo Lupisan and his brother, Jagi.
It is set to schedule a three-gun competition on the 28th, offering eight stages of pistol, shotgun and rifle action.
The shooters of Bohol are not to be outdone.
Lowell Belarmino (lowell_belarmi-no@yahoo.com), a certified gun nut who has, in many occasions, enlightened us here with articles of his own, reports that a fun shoot was held at the Camp Bernido Firing Range in Tagbilaran City last Dec. 20.
EVERY YEAR, the Philippine National Police (PNP) initiates a program to curb indiscriminate firing among its men and women during Christmas and New Year holidays.
In recent years, the PNP top brass would have regional, city and provincial commanders put seals on the muzzle of the service firearms of its men to ensure that these aren’t fired amidst the merrymaking.
If some of these guns do get fired, the person they are assigned to had better have a helluva good reason for it. Otherwise, as the policy goes, the erring officer gets sacked faster than Santa can swoosh down a chimney.
But Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella doesn’t seem to think the method of simply sealing guns and the caveat of dismissal post-haste is the most efficient way.
He proposed last November to the Cebu City Council that a resolution be issued to ask the PNP to come up with better measures because while service guns can be sealed, police officials and officers own back-up guns. He did not offer any alternative to the gun-sealing, though.
I appreciate the PNP’s efforts and the concern local officials like Councilor Labella show.
Still, the fact that the police’s top brass still sees the need to have guns sealed against indiscriminate firing, or that a local legislator believes the PNP should do more, reflects very poorly on our friends in uniform. It is as if they cannot be trusted to do the right thing amidst the merrymaking.
I hope that our friends in uniform will one day prove their superiors and, in this case, Councilor Labella, wrong.
In Quezon City, I read in a national daily, the police won’t be carrying around sealed guns this Christmas and New Year.
“We want to tell everybody that with or without their firearms taped, Quezon City cops are trusted and denounce any form of indiscriminate firing,” said Senior Supt. Magtanggol Gatdula of the Quezon City Police District. Gatudula’s confidence in his men has basis, says Senior Insp. Dorothy Du, chief of the QCPD public information office.
No Quezon City policeman has so far been involved in cases of indiscriminate firing during the holidays since Gatdula assumed his post as QCPD director.
Among licensed civilian gun owners, I guess the fact that the PNP and local officials are more concerned over indiscriminate firing with those in uniform can also be taken to mean that they trust those in civvies more.
This holiday season, and every day of every year after that, let’s us all help to prove them right.
IT’S CHRISTMAS Eve. And amidst the mad dash to wherever to do some last-minute whatever, I hope we can find time to
pause and reflect on for whom and about what the season is for.
I am, and many people will bear witness to this, not exactly religious. But there has got to be something more to the celebration than binges, partying and gifts.
Please indulge me as I thank all those who have done me well, apologize to all those who I’ve inadvertently hurt, and express my love to all who I am proud to call family and friends.
