Siquijor
Congressman Defends Gift of Guns to Barrio Captains
>Delivered-To: miraflor@cis.stanford.edu May
8, 2002 Mrs.
Carmenia Miraflor
It
is a strongly written piece of opinion, the one you wrote about us
“gifting” barangay captains with guns.
But given your mindset and the rest of your lot, I do not expect
any sense of fairness in the way you portray things in your website.
It is in fact geared into attacking us at every turn so that it is
very obviously a tool for political propaganda rather than for the
promotion of any genuine Siquijor interest. We
have never “gifted” the barangay captains with guns.
That is wrong English in the first place because a gift is either a
noun or an adjective and is not a verb that you can conjugate in the past
tense the way that you did. The
matter took root when the Association of Barangay Captains of Lazi filed a
joint resolution asking our office that they be furnished with firearms to
assist them in the discharge of their functions. In other words, the
proposal did not come from us but from them.
There is no discrimination against any barangay captain too,
whether they be allied or not with us, because everyone of them except the
lady captain of Capalasanan who declined to receive her share, is provided
with one handgun each. Even
without the request however, I am strongly supporting the proposal. A gun does not a killer make, because it does not shoot at
all if not for the person aiming it.
It is like a scalpel wielded by whose hand.
If it were held by a criminal, the knife would probably be utilized
for a criminal purpose and is therefore dangerous, but if it were used by
a surgeon in some surgical operation it serves humanity and justly
deserves our commendation. Just
because the Barangay Captain owns a gun does not mean that he will sooner
start shooting anymore than the mananguete with his scythe will start
slicing heads off. In other
words, a gun or a knife is just as good as the person who wields it. We
have absolute trust in the integrity of our Barangay Captains.
They are ardent believers in the rule of law.
They are worth the trust of their constituents.
That explains why they won their elections. Each of them has never been accused of nor committed any
infraction of the law, much less of terrorism during elections.
Such has not happened in Siquijor politics under our watch.
I won my elections fair and square too, in unprecedented majorities
not hitherto enjoyed by a candidate for Siquijor’s lone congressional
seat with only my good name and performance to boot. I think my appraisal
of our Barangay Captains would be more credible than yours because I live
with them all the days of my life, unlike you who formulate your judgment
a thousand miles away and who, in all probability is not even acquainted
with anyone of them for the simple reason that you only get to go home to
Lazi for a couple of days several years apart. A barangay captain is a
person in authority. Under
Philippine law he is allowed to carry a firearm, not to shoot nor to
commit any act of hooliganism as you wish them to do, but as a symbol and
a complement of his authority and office. We have been consulting with our
local PNP and the populace on the matter and their response is quite of
elation and encouragement. We
have less than ten (10) police officers assigned at the Lazi Police
Station. With about 18,000 townsfolk, the ratio is one (1) policeman for
every 1,800 residents. We
have only one patrol car making the rounds in all of our 18 barangays
spread in 7,064 square kilometers. The
area and its population are too large a tour of duty for our police force
to handle. Any contribution
extended to assist in maintaining peace and order is therefore most
welcome. You
speak of the need for plowshares and medicines, of school materials and
farm inputs. I wonder if your
mole has done her research very well.
A congressman is allotted 35 million a year, you know this because
as is your wont in publishing any material that is seemingly derogatory to
us, you have annexed a clipping of an editorial from the Philippine Star
on the matter on your website. The
fund allotted for the procurement of the hand guns is only P285,000.00. In other words, there is 34 million and some 715,000 pesos
more that stands as balance after this transaction.
The amount used to procure the handguns is a mere .8 % of the
budget. Did not your mole tell you how many roads we have built and
rehabilitated, how many school buildings we have constructed, how many
medicines we have distributed free of charge, how many educational
materials we have given to our schools and how much we have allotted for
farm inputs with the balance of 92.2 percent of our appropriations? You
yourself acknowledge the influx of private vehicles and the construction
of fine homes in the province although you grumble that the money that was
used to buy them did not come from government.
Of course, even in America your government does not pay the
amortization on your cars for you nor pay the mortgages on your homes.
But is it not a measure of the fine road network we have that
vehicle owners now want to drive in Siquijor with their new cars?
Are not the peaceable nature and the dynamism of the local leaders
part of the consideration of the homebuilder to build his house in our
province? At the rate your family is pitting its own candidates each
election, the time might someday come that you will succeed in having
yourselves elected as the leaders of our province.
I shall have no regrets if and when that moment arrives because it
is one of the consequences of democracy.
We come and go at the pleasure of our people.
But until then, I shall do my duty in accordance with the light
that my conscience and my principles shall allow me to do that duty. In
the meantime you can live with your nightmares in America. I and our
people find them irrelevant and non existent in Siquijor.
Unlike you we do not fear them here. I do not even think that you
will have the inward courage to print this letter in full in your
political website. Very truly yours, Congressman ORLANDO
A. FUA, JR.
|