Gun ban ‘pa-cute’

Stephanie Nicole Ella, the seven-year-old girl who was killed by a stray bullet that lodged in her head during the New Year’s Eve revelry, was finally laid to rest last Saturday. Her grieving parents renewed their fervent wish for the police to finally get the homicidal gun owner who fired the .45-caliber bullet that felled Nicole.

Following the tragic shooting of Nicole, newly installed Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Alan Purisima personally vowed to take charge of her case. Obviously, however, it remains not enough to solve Nicole’s case.

Despite several leads and the arrest of the suspected gun owner, the Caloocan City police has not come close to identifying with certainty whose .45-caliber gun killed Nicole. Notwithstanding the killer bullet recovered from Nicole’s head and the list of gun owners within a radius of 50 to 100 meters from the Ella residence in Caloocan City, the police have not solved it. They point to lack of witnesses who could give them vital information leading to the culprit.

On that note, Police Director Lina Sarmiento, head of the directorate for police community relations, stepped up to the plate. Sarmiento, the first policewoman to get two-star rank at the PNP, said her mother’s heart bleeds for a fellow mother who lost her child to a stray bullet. She underscored the need to help raise public awareness on reporting suspected owners of illegal guns, any discharge of firearms in their communities, and other suspicious and illegal activities around their areas.

Taking the cue from the PNP chief, Sarmiento disclosed that she has started to work on Purisima’s pet project “I-Report Mo Kay Tsip” where the public can just call or text any information, report or tips to 0917-8475757. This is different from the existing PNP 117 emergency hotline.

She tested last week how responsive, quick and prompt the PNP department in charge of this project based at Camp Crame, Quezon City. Standing beside the policeman on board the communication system, Sarmiento texted this without telling anyone: “May mga armado na tao sa loob ng Crame.”

She immediately got a reply to her text that went like this: “Base police will check on this information, sir/madam.” Sarmiento laughed aloud and gave her antics away.

It’s not a laughing matter but Sarmiento said the PNP has to deal with the possibility of prank calls and false text messages. There are ways though to check against such irresponsible callers or senders of text messages.

However, Sarmiento conceded that “I-Report Mo Kay Tsip” has too long a number to remember or call to help solve or stop a crime by concerned citizens. This is why, she told me, she has sounded out to the country’s two major telecommunications companies, Globe and Smart, to come up with just a four-digit contact number.

Internally, she said, the PNP has the 700-SAFE (SAFE corresponds to the keypads 4 * 6 2). Incidentally, SAFE also corresponds to Purisima’s special task force in charge of the PNP’s peace and order campaign for the May 2013 polls called Secure and Fair Elections.

Sarmiento’s office has barely started the information project to drum up public cooperation on ways to help police solve crimes like Nicole’s case, if not prevent all other crimes. Then more gun-related violent incidents took place one after the other, namely the Kawit shooting rampage that killed seven people last Jan. 4 and the checkpoint shootout in Quezon province that left 13 people dead last Jan. 6.

Even President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III could only commiserate with Purisima’s baptism of fire with this series of high-profile cases of gun-related violence just less than a month upon his assumption as PNP chief. In his first press conference this year at the Palace, P-Noy took up the cudgels for his embattled top cop.

The Commander-in-Chief urged the public to give Purisima a chance to prove his mettle especially in handling the peace and order situation in the May 2013 elections. By the way, Purisima earlier revealed that he helped train Noy in marksmanship.

Uniformed members of the PNP along with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and other law enforcement agencies are exempted from the gun ban imposed effective yesterday by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). The PNP, AFP and other government law enforcement agencies are the designated deputies of the Comelec for the duration of the election period that started yesterday all over the country.

As Comelec deputies, they will implement the nationwide gun ban during the 120-day election period, from Jan. 13 to June 13. In a bid to reduce poll-related violence, the Comelec also deputized the AFP and PNP to implement checkpoints in 135 cities and 1,493 municipalities all over the country tagged as “hotspots” or potential flashpoints during the election period.

During the gun ban, permits to carry firearms outside residences by individual gun owners are suspended, except those who have secured exemptions from the Comelec. Of course, those who would comply with this are legitimate gun owners who have licenses and firearms registered with the police.

Purisima confirmed last week that there are more than half-a-million loose firearms all over the country. Per police records, Purisima admitted the number represents only gun owners who have not renewed the licenses for their firearms or failed to register their guns anew. So, there could be more of these firearms on the “loose” and unaccounted for.

Purisima warned that gun holders who failed to have their licenses renewed would be the initial subject of the police operation “Oplan Katok,” a house-to-house campaign to check against loose firearms.

But how about those firearms that have no records at all with the police? They are as deadly and tacitly illegal, if not criminal because their owners violate the law on illegal possession of firearms.

P-Noy chided those calling for a total gun ban as “pa-cute” for proposing something that is impractical or unreasonable as far as responsible gun owners like him are concerned. But then again, who was making “pa-cute” when the PNP chief wrote to Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes to exempt the President from the gun ban?