Better measures to prevent indiscriminate firing urged

Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella, through a resolution he had filed before the City Council, asked City Police director Patrocinio Comendador to look for much better precautionary measures in dealing with the indiscriminate firing of guns during the Christmas and New Year revelry.

Labella said that “stray bullets from guns fired indiscriminately during the holidays, especially during the New Year celebration, have already claimed several lives of people and injured others.”

One of the steps undertaken by police officials to identify who among their men have fired their guns is the placing of tapes at the muzzles of their guns. But it has been noted that the move has never deterred indiscriminate firing, Labella said.

This is because many policemen have their own guns, aside from their government-issued firearms, he added.

The resolution asking Comendador to enforce appropriate measures in order to prevent the indiscriminate firing of guns by policemen, soldiers, and other gun-holders, will be tackled in tomorrow’s session.

To recall, 10-year-old Caroline Tolentino was killed by a stray bullet a decade ago while she was waiting for her father to arrive from work, as a taxi driver, in front of the gate of the then Cebu Plaza Hotel in Nivel Hills, barangay Lahug.

Nobody was arrested in that incident. — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV   (THE FREEMAN)