Noy knows whereof he speaks on gun ban

CITIZENS’ ARMY: A total firearms ban — or the restricting of gun possession to police and military personnel and forbidding it for civilians — is a dull reflex response to the spate of gun-related violence in our midst.

It is good that President Noynoy Aquino, who knows guns, spoke against a total ban. As a licensed and trained gun-owner for five decades, I agree with the President.

A better approach, I think, is to (1) impose tight requirements for possession of only one short and one long firearm, no more, (2) train license applicants on the safe and responsible use of guns, including marksmanship, (3) restrict permits to carry arms except to go to the gun smith or to the firing range, and (4) seize all unlicensed firearms regardless of who holds them.

The training for proper use of firearms can be woven into the program for maintaining a Citizens’ Army. Considering the growing external threats to our territorial integrity, this angle should be studied seriously.

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SELECT, TRAIN: On Point #1, we already have ownership requirements, including one for psychological fitness, that are strict enough. The problem lies in the enforcement.

It is appalling that some gun-owners boast of having simply paid for the required paperwork. Supervision of gun stores or merchants must be reviewed on the theory that the seller may break the rules just to make a sale.

On Point #2 on the proper handling of firearms, all prospective owners should train either with gun clubs or the police. The hopeless cases, or applicants obviously lacking aptitude, must be disqualified despite their paying the fees or logging training hours.

Properly trained gun-holders generally handle their weapons with respect. They are less prone to brandish their guns or to draw upon hearing an angry voice or an expletive.

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LOOSE GUNS: Point #3 on seizing all unlicensed firearms should be pressed. Holders of unlicensed firearms are more disposed to use them, because there are no ballistic records traceable to them and the guns can be thrown away after illegal use.

In contrast, a holder of a licensed firearm is constrained to use his gun responsibly and avoid its getting involved in any crime or violent incident.

As for private armies equipped with unlicensed guns and whose members are closer to their weapons than to their wives, these are a challenge to the authorities.

A government with a police force that is afraid to seize loose firearms or is selective in confiscating them has no reason to continue pretending to govern.

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PCGG PHASEOUT: The abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government as suggested by its chairman would be laudable if the 27-year-old agency first repaired the damage it has inflicted on private business before fading from the scene.

It is unfair for the PCGG to simply leave the scene of the crime smelling clean just because it has acquiesced to its own mercy-killing after straying from good government practices that it is supposed to pursue and personify.

The PCGG said it has reached a point of diminishing returns — starting to spend more than it can expect to recover of ill-gotten wealth. It then proposes to wind down and turn over its operations to the Department of Justice and to the Office of the Solicitor General and the Department of Finance pending litigations and disposition of sequestered assets.

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REPAIR DAMAGE: But what will happen to the PCGG officials and agents who had raided private firms under cover of sequestration? Will they ever be punished, and the loot returned, or will their prosecution be abandoned once PCGG is gone?

How will the justice department treat PCGG officials who had watered down illegal wealth cases or sold evidence against the Marcoses — the prime targets of the PCGG as created in 1986 by then President Cory Aquino?

Before stepping out, the PCGG chairman may want to mend most of the recent damage wrought by the agency on fat milking cows under its so-called conservatorship. The chairman is in a position to correct this.

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PHILCOMSAT: One exhibit of how the PCGG has bled firms in which sequestration should have been lifted long ago is the Philcomsat (Philippine Communications Satellite Corp.), wherein the Republic, and not the PCGG or any of its controlled agencies, has been its 35-percent owner since 2000.

In November 2010, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima directed the PCGG to “lift sequestration” over the government’s 35-percent shares, since their ownership is no longer in question. But her order has been ignored until this writing.

As recently as 2009, then chairman Camilo Sabio sequestered 432 hectares of Philcomsat-owned land and annotated its titles. The incumbent chairman can rectify, if he wants to, his predecessor’s unwarranted action as requested by the Philcomsat management.

This PCGG encroachment on clean private assets renders the land unmarketable, and is thus detrimental to the interests of the government which owns more than a third of it.

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RETURN THE LOOT: The PCGG has publicly called for its past nominees to “return” the loot taken from supposedly sequestered companies. Does this include the P2.8 billion that has been documented as stolen from Philcomsat?

The PCGG cannot even get key corporate records from its own nominees, their lawyers and corporate secretaries who allegedly looted the Philcomsat companies. In en banc Resolution 2008-009, it asked them for the records in 10 days “under pain of contempt.”

The documents, used to justify Philcomsat’s plunder, are now being cited in the former nominees’ defense in the courts and to extricate themselves from charges filed by the Ombudsman.

The records include the minutes of shareholders’, board and committee meetings, corporate resolutions, and the stock transfer book.

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