GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It is one of the ironies of lawmen’s life. The Philippine National Police makes hundreds of millions of pesos a year from licensing private firearms. Yet 20,000 cops do not have guns.
That 16 percent of the 125,000-strong PNP is gun-less shows how society has neglected the police that it also depends on so much. People expect cops to straighten out everything from traffic to domestic violence, thefts to coups d’état. And yet they’re given only about P2 billion a year, or P16,000 per head, to guard 18 million homes spread over 298,170 sq. km of land. That budget has to be stretched 90 percent for regional operations and ten for headquarters administrative, crime lab, and investigation work.
Dir. Gen. Avelino Razon can only make do. Before dreaming to buy new firearms, he first had to inventory what’s left every precinct armory. Handguns issued to scene-of-crime investigators, chaplains and medics were recalled and given to patrolmen who needed them round-the-clock. And then he discovered they were still 20,000 short. A good portion who had were bringing personal firearms to work.
Licensing guns is the PNP’s top revenue task, more than certifying vehicles or security guards. It has been raking in a record P335 million a year under Firearms and Explosives Chief Supt. Florencio Caccam Jr. A year’s collection is enough to cover the firearms shortage, But the money goes straight to the national coffers. Nothing is left for the force to buy its own guns, unless awarded funds for it. Caccam strives to raise his take by flushing out unregistered weapons, in the hope that Congress will plow back enough for them to fully arm. If not, then our cops might have to start carrying guns seized from criminals.
* * *
The environment department says the deaths and destruction from floods and landslides of recent storms were acts of God. For one, two months of rain from Typhoon Frank fell on
But the department shouldn’t blame nature alone. Its own Bureau of Mines and Geodetic Sciences has studied that most poblacions are built in fens prone to slides and flooding. This is because of traditional Filipino reverence for their dead, whom they bury in the town’s choicest, safest high ground. Environment officials must show the maps to local officials who can then relocate endangered folk. Speaking of which, the local officials too shouldn’t allow homebuilding just anywhere, unless verified secure from yearly, thus predictable, calamities.
The department must also take note of what Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico saw, because it’s happening everywhere else. Sawed logs and rocks slid down mountainsides with mud since illegal tree cutting and quarrying go on. In most provinces, small charcoals makers are picking off what’s left of denuded forests. Gravel makers, usually related to town mayors, also quarry public or private lands with impunity, in disregard of environment laws.
* * *
Reader Jose E.J. Flores shares a sad experience with “that CTPL racket” (Gotcha,
“You hit another mega issue. In Oct. 1992 my father was struck dead by a ten-wheeler truck. We received neither condolence note nor flowers from the trucker. Following up the compulsory P50,000 indemnity, I learned that he owns a sister-insurance company that issued the CTPL coverage. To this day we have yet to receive that P50,000. There is urgent need to review if not totally abolish that useless law on CTPL. I also believe GSIS will make good in this ‘racket’ — for its members’ benefit.”
Gibet Buenaventura narrates a similar case:
“My soldier-brother broke his left leg last year when hit by a jeepney (plate number TVD 102), which was then out of route. The
Lastly, this comment from Manuel Espaldon of Ayala Alabang,
“I was never for GSIS taking over the CTPL business because I do not relish the idea of doing business with it. It will be inefficient. But it was silly of the insurance industry to say that 60,000 people will lose their jobs. That many, just for CTPLs? So that’s why the coverage is so expensive. It is not the responsibility of motorists to support the livelihood of those 60,000. They are appealing to our sense of charity and yet the 60,000 fleece us. If the GSIS can handle the CTPL sans the 60,000, maybe I will change my mind. That is the consensus among us neighbors.”
* * *
