AS SEEN ON TV
Guns ruled again
News colleague Cheryl “Yeng” Cosim-Alvares continues to relive her nightmare with a gun wielding nut case along Congressional Avenue in Quezon City on All Souls Day.
While on board her Mitsubishi Outlander with relatives, Yeng was shocked when they were nearly sideswiped by a black Nissan Cefiro whose driver suddenly got down and started pointing a gun at them. The man only sped off when they refused to budge and did not obey his orders for them to get out of the vehicle.
Yeng has lost sleep and spent the succeeding days tracking their attacker and filing the necessary charges against him despite feelers from the offender’s camp that the matter be settled amicably.
Authorities later identified the abusive and gun totting driver as Richard Ordonez, a businessman and owner of a couple of firearms. As of this writing an order was already given to the Philippine National Police to confiscate all of Ordonez’ firearms and revoke his gun licenses and permits. He is also nowhere to be found as he was not around when the police checked his address in Project 6 Quezon City.
For Yeng the need to pursue the case is necessary to teach trigger happy motorists a lesson.
This is not the first time that guns have been used in the culmination of road rage. Forgive and forget and this gun wielding maniac could pull off something as brazen to any motorist who earns his ire in the future, with admirable, overflowing confidence.
For someone in the news business, Yeng knows drive by shootings and road rage killings involving affluent victims and equally affluent perpetrators are a common newscast feature. Senseless shootings have hogged headlines in the last 2 decades. Some of the more celebrated cases were the Ronald Chapman, Maureen Hultman and Eldon Maguan killings. The latter was also wrought by hotter heads prevailing in a traffic altercation.
Still the number of motorists carrying guns has not abated, and I don’t think it ever will unless stiffer penalties are slapped on illegal gun possession, or better yet an outright gun ban is enforced.
Yeng’s “near death” experience on All Souls Day came days after the Philippine National Police extended its gun amnesty deadline. Ironically, Ordonez would have been a good candidate for this as many of his guns have expired licenses.
On October 30, 2009 PNP Chief Jesus Versoza announced that gun owners have until November 30, 2009 to register their unlicensed firearms with the PNP. The gun amnesty under the PNP Civil Security Program was able to account for 171,337 loose firearms.
While the police boasts of such a haul, the number of guns freshly accounted for is not even close to half of the total unlicensed firearms still on the loose. By its own estimates the PNP said there are about 1.1 million unlicensed or loose firearms in the country before the amnesty program was launched early this year. A United Nations report had named the Philippines as a country struggling with loose firearms proliferation, compelling the government to take action by offering amnesty to gun owners whose guns are unlicensed, or whose licenses are expired.
But amnesty aside I still believe a gunless society is one way of stopping road rage killings, triggered so to speak, by guns. There is not much one can do with road rage as it is a reality motorists must confront in a country cursed with perennial traffic messes and ill-mannered drivers.
My wife brings up an interesting point one time when we were driving along EDSA and a speeding bus cuts in front of us. She said that out of rage and impulse, any driver who has a gun can really use his weapon in the heat of the moment and I agree.
Makapatay ka lang… if a gun is within reach.
