Gun-related incidents down over holidays
THE POLICE’S final verdict: The past holiday season appears to have been safer to life and limb as compared to last year.
According to the Philippine National Police’s last tally of gun-related incidents nationwide from Dec. 16 to Jan. 5, there have only been 12 reports of illegal discharge of firearms over the holidays, down from the 24 incidents in the same period the previous year. There were also only 55 stray bullet incidents reported nationwide in the same period, as compared to 64 from last year.
The last recorded stray bullet incidents nationwide for the past holiday season were on Jan. 1.
Consequently, injuries from stray bullets have also gone down to 42, from the previous year’s 46 reported victims. Meanwhile, injuries from illegal discharge of firearms incidents are down to two, from seven during the 2014-2015 holiday season.
There were no recorded fatalities due to stray bullet over the past holiday season, a stark improvement to the previous year, where a stray bullet took one life.
Arrests due to such holiday gun-related incidents are also down by half, at only ten, as compared to 18 over the holidays in 2014 and in welcoming 2015.
Big improvement from 2014
Even the number of erring police who indiscriminately fired their guns over the holidays has gone down. There was only one policeman reported for such an indiscretion over the past weeks, identified as Metro Manila policeman PO1 Francis Nepomuceno Flake. The rest of the arrested over the holiday season for indiscriminate firing were civilians and one security guard.
PNP Director General Ricardo Marquez noted that in 2014, there were eight from the police ranks who were arrested for illegal discharge of firearms over the holidays.
“So that’s a big improvement, but we are after zero. So I think we have learned a lot from so many New Year’s celebrations. Like I said, we don’t need people like him. We will make sure he is dismissed from the service,” Marquez said, of Flake, in an interview on Monday.
Marquez had credited citizen participation—especially in video-recording and photographing of trigger-happy revelers—for the drop in holiday incidents and casualties. “That’s why we encourage our netizens to post those incidents in social media so we can run after them,” Marquez said. “The more people have been posting, the less incidents occur.”
