Wild Wild West

The firecracker injuries sustained in the yearend revelry appeared to be a harbinger of worse things to come. According to the Department of Health, not only was the final number significantly higher this year compared to 2013 (1,018 injuries at the start of the new year, or 87 cases more than the figure recorded in same period last year, and 73 cases more than the average in the last five years from 2008 to 2012) but 22 cases also were the result of stray bullets.

That figure may be down from the 25 last year, but the proliferation of loose firearms and their indiscriminate firing remain a grievous concern, brought home by the shocking death of a three-month-old baby and the critical wounding of a two-year-old boy after being hit by stray bullets in the New Year celebrations.

Now, barely two weeks into 2014, a spate of shootings have occurred in various spots in the metro, all by unidentified men who didn’t care that they shot their prey in broad daylight or there were witnesses around to report their crime. That sense of impunity can only come from a conviction that they can easily get away with their heinous deed—that the police will be ineffective, as usual, in going after them, that the public will lose interest in crying murder after a couple of weeks, and that even if they are corralled, the corrupt, slowpoke justice system ensures that their case will drag on for years, until the victims’ families lose all motivation and hope in pursuing the case.

How else explain the daring ambush of businesswoman Arlene Garcia, 39, in the middle of afternoon traffic in Quezon City last week? Garcia was reportedly behind the wheel of her sport utility vehicle on the way to her office when the gunman on a motorcycle sidled up to the driver’s side and fired a bullet at her head.

The following day, it was the turn of a 25-year-old rookie cop to be shot dead in Central Signal Village in Taguig City while on his way to work at 5:30 a.m. PO1 Aldrin Laguerta Castro was in uniform and driving his motorcycle at the corner of MRT Avenue and Castanas Street when two men on another motorcycle drew up alongside him and tried to run him off the road, said a report in this paper. When Castro accelerated, one of the two men shot him.

At 3 a.m. in Marikina City the next day, two teenagers were shot in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identities. Sean Gabriel Nepomuceno, the 16-year-old grandson of comic and popular impersonator Willie Nepomuceno, was shot three times in the body, and a companion, Franc Rayven Jocson, once in the thigh. Their two other companions were able to flee unhurt. The four young men were reportedly eating at a burger stand when four other men opened fire, mistaking them for participants in a brawl that occurred earlier in the area.

A 2010 report by the Philippine National Police estimated 1,110,372 loose firearms nationwide, with the National Capital Region or Metro Manila having the biggest concentration. While the PNP’s record at compiling statistics is always suspect given its propensity to tweak the numbers for public-relations purposes, the picture only gets more alarming with additional data. The PNP Firearms and Explosives Office reported in October 2012 that there were 562,000 unrenewed gun licenses in the country. But how many of those unrenewed firearms had been seized by the police? Only 4,911.

The ease with which any person in these parts can purchase a gun, whether in licensed stores or through backroom deals, and hide such a firearm from review and inspection by law-enforcement authorities, has led to a virtual breakdown of law and order, such that a deadly shooting can occur right inside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, with a mayor and his family as targets, but with an innocent child cradled by his mother on the sidelines ending up as among the fatalities.

This is an outrageous state of affairs, and the PNP, the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Justice bear chief responsibility for it. Until a serious, no-nonsense drive against loose firearms is conducted, and the people who wield them—whether criminals or ordinary folk who evade the law on registering firearms—are made to pay for their actions, this country will be in the grip of more unresolved crime, from petty holdups to outright assassinations.

“What’s happening to our country?” lamented Willie Nep. The Wild Wild West is what’s happened to it.