The Philippines reportedly implemented “tighter security at all shopping malls” in the aftermath of a shooting rampage during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado, the United States that resulted in the deaths of 12 cinema patrons on Friday.
No less than Edwin Lacierda, spokesman of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III, announced the implementation of security measures around Philippine shopping malls, presumably to assure the safety of the throngs of Filipino shoppers who flock daily to these commercial facilities…
“We are asking mall operators to have security guards thoroughly search bags… in order that we can avoid a similar incident,” [Lacierda] said Sunday.
That a top government official would announce what is really a low-level domestic security concern possibly says something about the image problem Malacañang suffers at present. President BS Aquino is a gun enthusiast and counts among his shooting buddies a number of key government officials currently serving in his administration including (among others):
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– Department of Justice Secretary Leila De Lima
– Land Transportation Office Chief Virginia Torres
– Presidential Political Adviser Ronald Llamas
– Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares
– Department of Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno
[Photo courtesy U.S.News.]
Recall that Llamas some time ago figured in an embarrassing scandal after an arsenal of high-powered firearms including some bulletproof vests were found in his vehicle after a traffic accident involving two of his staff members.
Suffice to say, when it comes to gun-related violence, Filipinos have more reason to fear politicians and police officers considering their president and his clique of closest cronies are quite the cowboys that they fancy themselves to be. Indeed, in a democracy, elected officials very closely reflect the character of their constituents. Much of the Philippines itself is a tinderbox considering that even on normal days (when massacres half a planet away aren’t inducing grandstanding about “safety” at the very top), heavily-armed private security forces patrol or stand guard at most premises — from large shopping malls to the smallest corner convenience stores.
Did we mention, by the way, that the Philippines is a former colony of the United States? Apparently politicians’ rhetoric about guns in former colonies also reflect politicians’ rhetoric about guns in their former overlords’ halls of power — which means similar ironies backdrop the trite statements issued by politicians in the US as well…
The “right to bear arms†crowd, besides calling for people “not to politicize the issue†and having so effectively brainwashed the media that even overseas commentators suggest “now is not the time to have the debateâ€, is sticking with the “if someone had been armed, they could have stopped the shooter†argument. The Century 16 Cinemas in Aurora apparently has a “no guns†policy, even though Colorado, despite having been the setting of the Columbine massacre, assorted other violent rampages, and three of Stephen King’s scariest novels (obviously, there is something wrong with the place), has a law which allows the carrying of concealed weapons.
In a society such as the Philippines that famously suffers from a collective narcissistic personality disorder, it really does not take an expert to see that firearms and self-absorbed males together spell trouble. Indeed…
Perhaps this is why a lot of the issues in the Philippines always end up reaching an impasse. Hardly anything gets resolved. This is because most politicians in power have excessive feelings of self-importance and are just preoccupied with “fantasies of success, power, beauty, intelligence†but they don’t really have a lot of substance. More importantly, most Filipino politicians pursue selfish goals regardless of how they affect other people.
Unless Filipino men who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder remain undiagnosed and untreated, they will continue to hold positions of power unrestrained, wreaking havoc on Philippine society.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
It’s pretty hard to take the directives seriously when they come from yet another Neanderthal (of which we have 10’s of millions in the States) who thinks that there is some “legitimate” and “responsible” way for someone who is not an active-duty police officer, soldier, or is at risk of being attacked by Visigoths to be in possession of a firearm.
I just cringe whenever non-active duty police citizens have been reported to defend their own lives with firearms. What a bunch of neanderthals right?
And what is up with that 71 year old neanderthal that shot two armed assailants during a robbery at an internet cafe in Florida? I’m just glad that the 62 year old man who was beaten to death in Chicago wasn’t armed. What could possible be a “legitimate” reason for him to carry one anyways.
You gun nuts, besides being unable to grasp that you are completely wasting your time trying to argue with anyone with an IQ, have a poor grasp of math. 10,000+ killed and wounded each year due to guns in the US, and the two that might have actually deserved it for you are empirical evidence of the benefit of having the entire nation armed to the teeth.
Math? Oh I sure am in favor of math. 599,413 deaths per year from heart disease. We should definitely make sedentary lifestyles illegal, daily exercise mandatory. Soda, alcohol, chocolate, ice cream, french fries, sharp scissors, Oh my God somebody think about the children!
Good argument, dimwit. Let me know when my sedentary lifestyle poses a threat of grave injury or death to you or anyone you know, and I’ll give it some thought.
Oh you’re so smart. A list of things that can pose a threat to me and anyone I know. Hmmm lets see; kitchen knives, electrical cords, ice picks, gasoline, matches, forks, sharpened pencils, metal pipes, screw drivers, shovels, rocks, glass bottles, baseball bats, chainsaws, hammers, crowbars, rusty nails, asteroids, and Freddy Krueger
And don’t come blaming me when you cripple that 13 year old boy after you fall on him during a stroke.
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
– George Washington
The Real Quote:
A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.
—George Washington’s First Annual Message to Congress (January 8, 1790)
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
– Robert A. Heinlein
In many places here in the Philippines, security checks are merely for show, pakitang-tao, like we say in the vernacular. I doubt a security guard feeling people up is sufficient to spot a hidden weapon. I doubt as well that poking a stick into someone else’s bag is enough either. Unsurprisingly, expect people in authority will play the “do you know who I am?” card when you subject them to the same search procedures that everybody should be subject to.
Agreed. Sometimes I say to myself “I could have hidden my balisong and the near-useless rent-a-cop wouldn’t even notice I had one.”
Who are these people kidding? It is not uncommon that you meet a uniformed soldier/militiamen in the cities of mindanao dragging their menacingly looking assault rifles. Add to that are some in civies who do not make any attempt to conceal their weapons. Will they ever succeed in disarming those political warlords in central mindanao, the zamboanga peninsula and the Sulu archipelago? And then there is the Abbu Sayaf, the MILF and the NPAs. Add into the mix the hibernating MNLF. I do not think the present dispensation has enough “cojones” to confiscate all these loose firearms.
Malacañang’s announcements, in light of the Colorado movie theatre incident, is just another pa-pogi move by the government. It is a high profile story being used to illustrate that PNoy’s government is doing something. The announcement is empty, of course, mainly because, the theatre incident is an extreme-edge case, and is, arguably, a mostly USA-specific phenomenon.
@Alconce:Fine by me.I reside in Mindanao and I would prefer to have my own weapons.You’ll never if those mujaheddins might be amok there whether they are ASG,MILF and MNLF.Better with one than none.Call me paranoid but it is a fact of life here that it is better for sane and non-pinoy people whether Christian or Muslim to be armed.
The shooter named , Holmes, is a graduate student, for PhD in NeuroScience. He was an Honor Student, since elementary. Something snapped in him. Maybe the pressure in his studies, or outside forces. This can happen to any person. Working for a PhD in a U.S. university, is very laborious and hard. This may had contributed to his violent behavior. He may had been frustrated. No amount of prevention, can prevent people from getting insane. Noynoy Aquino and his gang, are suspected to suffer from Depression, and they carry high powered guns…This is the problem.
a lot of these “shooters” were loners/ outcasts. This guy was not. His social life was pretty much normal. So far with what we know, he does not fit the usual profile.
“Filipinos have more reason to fear politicians and police officers considering their president and his clique of closest cronies are quite the cowboys that they fancy themselves to be.”
I personally support the right to bear arms. I know there will be those who will not approve, but that doesn’t mean they’re automatically considered jackbooted goose-stepping totalitarian thugs.
BUT I DIGRESS.
Such a statement can be construed as precisely why bearing arms is a need. The unarmed sheep at the mercy of the armed wolf…
I’d like to own a firearm, but I’ll have to settle for a Linnemann shovel and a machete for home defense. Besides, in the Philippines, shooting an armed home intruder can very well be shooting a cop.
BTW, Switzerland and Israel have at least 2 firearms per household, and Finland has even more liberal gun laws than the US, but have even less or absolutely no crazy shooters in those countries. People there simply take the responsibility to a higher level. Nevertheless, I’d sooner trust a backwoods hillbilly than an intellectual loner when it comes to firearms safety and responsibility. At least rednecks take to shooting socially and make every shot count. Loners just snap and kill everything that moves.