As big as an elephant

A problem can be as big as an elephant but people can be as blind as a bat!

Unbelievable as that may seem, it is clear that many radio commentators and media analysts are totally missing the mark as they comment on the series of shooting incidents inside SM Malls.

Even those with good intentions and have offered suggestions and advise, have become an example of what President Noynoy referred to when he said, We need to be sure we are addressing the right problem in order to have the right solutions.

When an abandoned housewife shot her husband and attempted suicide inside an SM Mall, commentators immediately focused on “lax security” and the psychology of abandoned women. The following week, when a 13-year-old boy shot his 16-year-old boyfriend and then committed suicide, commentators once again focused on lax security and the mental state of minors and confused sexuality.

What we have is a GUN problem or too many loose firearms. Security issues and suicides are common in many nations and societies, but in a society where guns are easily bought, sold and used, we can all expect bloodshed.

Why focus on metal detectors and sexuality? Why lay the blame on the malls that are just as much a victim of the violence in many ways?

How come no one ever talked about GUNS and LOOSE FIREARMS? Why has no one talked about GUN CONTROL or a campaign against loose firearms?

Is it because many of the commentators are avid shooters, gun collectors and members of gun clubs? I find it hard to believe that veteran media personalities could be blind to a problem as big as an elephant.

I think the reason they won’t is because it may affect, interfere or otherwise hassle gun owners, gun clubs and shooters.

They seem to forget that any registered, licensed gun owner or gun club member is already complying and under the supervision of existing gun control laws. So any call for real gun control is intended for people who are not subject to existing gun control laws.

Unfortunately, just like media that are blind or won’t speak about a loose firearms crisis, registered and licensed gun owners make the mistake of immediately jumping up and down for fear that their rights may be taken away or abridged.

If anyone should be spearheading the need for gun control, it should be gun clubs and license owners who pay so much and have to pass so many requirements, while criminals move around unrestrained and free of charge!

Malls don’t kill people, GUNS do. Avoiding the issue is the equivalent of giving criminals a green light to go and kill someone with a gun!

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Senators “Kiko” Pangilinan, Ed Angara, and Miriam Defensor Santiago may want to reflect or investigate how local governments are slowly but surely reducing the available land area under “agricultural classification”.

In fact there is an urgent need to pass a law to make it virtually impossible to convert or reclassify “critical” agricultural lands particularly in Luzon where commercial development has encroached on agricultural lands thereby threatening food security in the long term.

At the very least, the law should prevent local government units from reclassifying titled and established agricultural lands into residential or commercial land without the permission of property owners.

Every time I go on a road trip there are more and more residential and commercial establishments going up while there are less and less rice fields, “bukids” or agricultural lands.

To add to the disappearance of “agricultural lands”, many local governments have been reclassifying agricultural areas into residential or commercial properties, thereby creating two major problems to long time farmers as well as weekend farmers.

The reclassification raises the annual real estate tax as well as subsequent transfer tax or inheritance tax to unaffordable rates, often forcing farming families to simply sell or bail out. In most cases the amount goes up to as much as three or four times than that of “agricultural land”.

The worst thing about it is that the rezoning or reclassification often forces farmers out of business because developers or lot buyers go to town to protest the presence of a piggery, a chicken farm or a cattle feedlot in a “residential” zone that existed before the developers or homeowners even set foot!

Through the years I have met up with several “farmers” or agricultural entrepreneurs who pioneered in uninhabited areas and built up a food or farming related business in areas that were classified as “agricultural lands” and with no residential developments nearby.

Unfortunately some land owners pass away and their children give up on the “farm” or the “bukid” and opt to sell out to developers who build housing projects around or near the farm. Then one day, “many” residents complain about one or two farms as being smelly or inappropriate and make moves to force them out or shut them down.

In our case in Lipa, Batangas, we woke up one day to learn that our farm lots were converted from agricultural land to residential land because part of the original Leviste Estate had been developed into a golfing community. So to simplify things, the city assessors office unilaterally declared the rest as residential without consulting any of the chicken farms or weekend organic farmers such as myself.

If the senators are truly concerned with agriculture and food security, they must investigate and protect agricultural lands with as much concern as they have for the environment.

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