Church to push for surrender of unlicensed guns

Published Date: June 24, 2009

A shooting attack on a Catholic radio station has led to Church calls to disarm local “private armies.”

Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian
of Bangued wants private
armies to disarm (file photo)

Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian of Bangued told UCA News that it was unclear if the reported “strafing” of the diocesan AM radio station, DZPA, on June 17 was an attack on a journalist sheltering there or just “a prank of teenagers with guns.”

The radio station´s gate was shot at during the incident.

Marjorie Trinidad, a local newspaper columnist, her husband and two-year-old daughter are living temporarily in the compound under police protection after a shooting attack on her home on May 14. The national journalism union says the attacks are related to a column Trinidad wrote alleging anomalies at the local power cooperative.

The bishop said that many people living in Abra province own unlicensed firearms and “impulsively” use them after drinking sessions. He said he would direct his priests to encourage “private armies” in the diocese to surrender unlicensed firearms starting July, when an official amnesty begins.

He supports a government amnesty for everyone who turns in unlicensed firearms between July and October.

The bishop said the PNP provincial commander in Abra told him about the four month amnesty plan.

In Manila a secretary in the PNP Firearms and Explosives Division told UCA News the PNP had proposed an amnesty for holders of unlicensed firearms to start in July and proposed to run at least four months and are waiting for the president´s order.

The Divine Word bishop said that violence would continue as long as there is access to unlicensed firearms. He added that the Church will use the pulpit, the radio station, weekly Catholic newspapers and schools to campaign for people to turn in unlicensed guns.

“Here in Abra we have the bales or revenge system,” he said. “People seek revenge for the slightest real or imagined insult.” He said bales could take place years later, and are “made possible because of unlicensed firearms.”

Bangued is the capital of Abra province. About 84 percent of the 236,910 people here are Catholics.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) are monitoring at least seven private armies in Abra maintained by politicians and their “allies,” according to media reports.

Bishop Jaucian met with DZPA radio manager and Abra diocesan director of communication, Father Carmelo Gonzales, on June 22, to evaluate the June 17 incident.

The bishop said his priests had also advised him to speak with the Abra PNP commander and push for a speedy investigation into the incident. He added that if the provincial commander did not order a quick inquiry, he would approach regional or national police.

“Crimes like this usually go unsolved,” he said.

Following an earlier amnesty last year, the PNP estimated that there are 115,000 unregistered firearms around the country. Most are used for criminal activities, the police said.

The PNP have also not ruled out local politics in the murder of Abra Congressman Luis Bersamin Jr. in 2006. He was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle outside a Church in Quezon City, northeast of Manila after a wedding.

Father Gonzales said the PNP had asked Trinidad and the radio station to stop broadcasting news about the alleged anomalies at the power cooperative “but still the building was fired at.”

He said that it “if our congressman can be killed and no one arrested (over it) how much less can we expect to resolve the case of Ms. Trinidad.”

The compound of the 30-year-old radio station DZPA also houses a newspaper office, an internet cafe run by the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of the Philippines, and the NGO, Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government.

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