A plan to arm barangay chairpersons with firearms by Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing which drew support from Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III raises some questions, not least of which is whether it is the right solution to protect these officials from those who wish to kill them.
Lest we forget, President Rodrigo Duterte plans to do away with this year’s barangay elections scheduled in October on his premise that he has to prevent the election or reelection of barangay officials suspected of involvement in the illegal drug trade.
In fact, he and his allies in Congress are all too willing not only to suspend the barangay elections to some future time but to allow him to appoint barangay chairpersons nationwide to be assessed and recommended by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Even if the elections do proceed this year, what’s to stop these barangay off icials suspected of illegal drug involvement from using the firearms issued to them by the local government?
The fact that there is no record of barangay officials abusing their firearms during the tenure of Quisumbing’s predecessor, former Mandaue City mayor and now Rep. Jonas Cortes of Cebu’s sixth district, is no guarantee that one or two of them won’t cross the line.
Quisumbing planned to issue the firearms to barangay officials in the wake of the murder of Barangay Mantuyong chairman Antonino Maquilan, an amputee killed in cold blood by a still-unidentified gunman at the barangay hall last May 3.
While one commiserates with his family, one has to ask whether issuing firearms to local officials based solely on their psychological records would be sufficient. It goes without saying that a thorough background check is in order, something the voting public usually glances over when choosing candidates for public office even at the community level.
The issuance of firearms to barangay officials also comes with the provisional authority to carry them outside of their homes on the presumption that they do so in their official capacity as chairpersons or village chieftains.
This is not just about Mandaue City but other local governments in Cebu as well, particularly Metro Cebu where crime incidence is higher due to the larger population centers.
There’s practically no opposition to Quisumbing’s move, so Mandaue City residents can only hope that the good mayor will conduct a thorough assessment of his barangay chairpersons to see if they can be trusted to carry and use their firearms in the performance of their peace-keeping duties and to not go gung ho on criminal suspects who are best left for the police to handle, or be tempted to brandish them for intimidation.
It’s not the first time that policies intended for public benefit goes wrong, sometimes horribly so, and we hope this isn’t the case with arming Mandaue City’s barangay chairpersons.