EDITORIAL - Again, death from a stray bullet

If you shoot a bullet into the air, it won’t disintegrate in the atmosphere or head for the moon. The bullet will fall back to Earth, and it could hit a living creature.

This reminder is issued every year to gun owners including police and military personnel, as a warning against celebrating the New Year through indiscriminate gunfire.

Yet this holiday season, a man who had been drinking with friends beginning on Christmas Eve died after being hit by a stray bullet at 12:50 a.m. on Dec. 25 in Tondo, Manila.

Police said a suspect in the death of the victim, identified as Rey-an Policarpio, has been identified and is being hunted down. Let’s hope the killer is caught.

Over the years across the country, stray bullets from celebratory gunfire have killed or maimed people including children sleeping at home or watching the New Year revelry outside their house.

Protest marches have been staged by those demanding justice for the fatalities. The Philippine National Police has tried taping the muzzles of its members’ service firearms days before New Year’s Eve.

Yet people continue to be killed or wounded by stray bullets fired from the guns of lowlifes who want to welcome the New Year with a bang. Twelve such cases were recorded every year from 2022 to 2024, while 11 cases were reported in 2021.

The problem was highlighted in 2013 when seven-year-old Stephanie Nicole Ella was hit in the head with a stray bullet while watching the fireworks with her father near their home in Caloocan City. The grade one pupil died later in a hospital.

Like the case of Stephanie Nicole, nearly all the cases involving deaths or injuries from stray bullets remain unsolved.

Thanks largely to this failure to catch the culprits, the dangerous revelry continues. But these days the chances of arresting the homicidal revelers should improve with the greater number of surveillance cameras now in use. People can do their part through heightened vigilance amid the noisy revelry.

Dangerous celebratory gunfire keeps happening during the holidays because the perpetrators believe they can get away with it. The PNP can help end the impunity by catching the person who killed Rey-an Policarpio.