Arming the judiciary

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

In a four-page resolution, the Supreme Court has allowed judges to carry firearms for their protection and security, as well as provided them with a “hand gun loan” so they can acquire these for their personal protection, safety and security.   The high court will be providing qualified judges of the land with the means to acquire firearms, giving them easy payment schemes of 36 monthly installments for an amount not exceeding P50,000, as well as negotiating with gun companies through its Motorcycle and Computer Acquisition Program Committee. This is to enable judges who avail of the loan to arm themselves at the lowest possible cost.

The high court’s decision to allow judges firearms to carry firearms was prompted by the deaths of several of their colleagues, the most recent being Judge Roberto Navidad of Calbayog City Regional Trial Court in Samar province last January.  Navidad had been the 15th judge to be ambushed since 1999.

We hope that the Supreme Court has exhausted all the remedies to prevent these continuing threats on the lives of its judges before resorting to this crude solution of arming Filipino judges.  There will be those who will agree with this decision just as there will be those who will criticize the wisdom of putting more firearms in the street. However, there will be no debate on the fact that the inability of the Philippine National Police to prevent these murders, as well as capture the perpetrators of past executions in broad daylight, lies at the crux of this controversial decision.

The PNP should take this recent Supreme Court resolution as the ultimate insult, for it simply means that the members of the high court no longer think that the country’s police force can adequately protect its roster of judges from the threats against their lives.  Hopefully, the leadership of the PNP takes this challenge head on and doubles, if not triples its efforts in protecting, not just our magistrates, but the general public as well, so that, one day, people will not have to feel compelled to acquire firearms for personal protection.*