Filipinos Have an Answer for the Nation’s Rising Crime Rate: Get Yourself a Gun

A 28-year-old woman in an exclusive suburban neighborhood climbs into her late-model car with her purse and shopping list--and a shotgun under the seat.

“My shotgun is my best protection against car-nappers,” said the woman, using the favored local expression for car thieves.

She is among a growing number of Manila residents who have begun carrying weapons as protection against what they see as a rising crime rate in Manila.

Military officials estimate that there are nearly 513,000 pistols, rifles and shotguns in civilian hands throughout the Philippines, a nation of 58 million people, and that more than 184,000 of those weapons are unregistered.

Advertisements for imported firearms have begun appearing in newspapers and mass-circulation magazines.

Business Booming

Walden Carbonell, manager of the Walden-James Guns and Hobby Shop, says business is booming. He said about 40 customers, most of them businessmen and professionals, come into his shop every day.

“There are more criminals with guns nowadays,” he told one customer. “That’s why you need a sophisticated weapon.”

The customer, lawyer Tomas Lahom, agreed.

“I’m buying a semiautomatic shotgun, just for the home,” he said.

“There has been an increase in the number of individuals wanting to own firearms,” said Col. Jose Andaya, chief of the Philippine constabulary’s firearms and explosives unit. “But this is normal because of our peace and order situation.”

Police report that in 1986, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, 21,914 crimes were reported in metropolitan Manila. Of those, 14,281 were “index crimes,” such as murder, rape, armed robbery and kidnaping.

Crime a Top Priority

The police say they have no later figures that would show whether the rate is rising or falling, but the general public perceives it as rising. President Corazon Aquino said in September that law and order was breaking down and that preventing crime was a top government priority.

According to a study by private security companies, 764 murders were reported up to October, 1988, and only 299 have been solved. The study also said banks lost 55.3 million pesos ($2.7 million) in about 50 armed holdups in that same period.

Fascination with firearms has been a traditional feature of Philippine life. But police acknowledge that the firearm fad is increasing because of public fears about violent crime and lack of confidence in law enforcement.

“There is a most compelling need felt among a growing number of Filipinos to arm themselves,” said the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper. “The average Filipino does not have enough confidence in the authorities to defend him from physical harm.”

Firearms Criticized

Several Manila newspapers have decried the spread of firearms among the public, maintaining that the increase in weapons will only make the city more dangerous.

“More firearms in the hands of civilians will not combat criminality,” said the Manila Chronicle. “All government has to do is strictly enforce the ban on carrying of firearms by unauthorized persons.”

But in October, the Philippine Congress actually made it easier for Filipinos without criminal records to obtain weapons. It approved a bill allowing individuals to own as many as two licensed firearms and to carry one of them outside a residence.

Congress itself has imported weapons for the protection of its members, and carloads of armed security guards trailing limousines of congressmen, government officials or prosperous businessmen are a common sight on Manila streets.