Stray tragedies

In the afternoon of Dec. 23, Fely Joy Paras was whipping up merienda in her kitchen in Bantay, Ilocos Sur, when she felt as though her head had been struck.

She put a hand to her mouth and saw blood on it when she took it away. It turned out she had been shot in the mouth; she found the .45 cal slug lodged there.

Authorities are looking into the possibility of a targeted shooting but say that more than likely, it was a case of a stray bullet hitting an unsuspecting victim.

The horror that befell Paras, which caused her to lose five of her teeth, indicates a continuing evil: persons firing indiscriminately into the air and invariably hitting someone, in a perverse way of celebrating the yearend holidays.

Early in 2017, Emilyn Calano, 15, died after being in a coma for four days. On New Year’s Eve she was watching a fireworks display near her home in Malabon City when she suddenly collapsed.

Relatives who came to her aid discovered that she had been shot in the head. Police said Emilyn was hit by a bullet from a shooting attempt gone wrong.

The circumstances were tragically similar to the 2013 case of seven-year-old Stephanie Nicole Ella. She was watching fireworks outside her home in Caloocan City when she fell to the ground, a bullet lodged in her head.

Rushed to the hospital, Stephanie fought for her life for the next 38 hours. But after her eighth cardiac arrest, her family told the doctors at East Avenue Medical Center to desist from trying to revive her.

“Let’s stop. She has suffered enough,” Stephanie’s father, Aquilino Ella, was quoted as saying.

Speaking with reporters, he expressed regret that he could not grant his child’s wish for them to watch the fireworks together, with her cradled in his arms.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has filed a bill calling for stiffer penalties for irresponsible gun owners. Senate Bill No. 1008 seeks to punish those found guilty of firing a gun indiscriminately with the maximum penalty of six years in prison and, in particular, members of the police and the military guilty of the same offense with up to 20 years in prison.

The measure goes further in seeking to punish gun owners who kill others through indiscriminate shooting with up to 40 years behind bars. He also proposed the enhancement of a police database on guns and ammunition, which would make it easier to trace weapons used in a crime.

Gatchalian was mayor of neighboring Valenzuela City when Stephanie Ella was felled, and made a point to visit her wake.

Commenting early this year on the shooting death of Emilyn Calano, he said: “I am so sad that this happened again to an innocent girl. She was defenseless. How are we all supposed to feel safe every New Year revelry if these things happen?”

The government has been working to contain the mayhem that traditionally marks New Year’s Eve through Executive Order No. 28, signed by President Duterte last June.

The order is aimed at cutting down the injuries caused by firecrackers and other pyrotechnic devices during the revelry: It confines the use of firecrackers to “community fireworks display” supervised by the police and local government units.

But the continuing horror is the indiscriminate firing of guns. Cops and soldiers remain the focus of scrutiny although there are other people who carry firearms, whether licensed or not.

The Metro Manila police chief, Oscar Albayalde, has announced that cops caught discharging their firearms on New Year’s Eve would be dismissed from the service, and that there would be “no mercy.”

Last year, the Philippine National Police recorded 23 incidents of indiscriminate firing of guns during the holidays, with at least six of the 19 suspects identified as policemen and a military man.

Nine persons, including two policemen, were arrested during the period Dec. 16-27 for the indiscriminate firing of guns — proof that the act remains a macho act of transgression despite all these stray tragedies that have snuffed out the lives of children.

The government and the private sector must find a way to work together to hunt down these criminals and bring them to justice.