No guns, no gory.
Resort owners in Malapascua Island want a total gun ban imposed in the northern Cebu dive destination to prevent a repeat of the Black Saturday killing of a British dive shop owner who was gunned down by a security guard.
The proposed ban which the resort owners put on the table in a public hearing held by the Cebu Provincial Board on Wednesday will cover private security guards hired by resorts and establishments operating in the remote island of Daanbantayan town.
“The consensus of all the resort owners was to disarm the security guards. The suggestion prohibiting fatal weapons garnered a unanimous vote. No one objected,” Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale said yesterday.
Daanbantayan Mayor Augusto Corro, PB Member Celestino “Tining” Martinez III and members of the PB committee on tourism were also present in the consultation held in the island a few days after British national Anthony Gilchrist was shot four times in the chest and twice in the head by a security guard, whom he castigated for reporting for work drunk and 40 minutes late.
Gilchrist, 35, died as he was taken to a hospital on Malapascua Island, where he had lived for two years.
Police said the shooting happened on Black Saturday at Fish Buddies, a scuba diving shop co-owned by Gilchrist.
The guard, Melchor Alciso Jr., used a .38 cal. revolver issued to him by his security agency.
The suggestion to use non-lethal weapons in the tourist spot instead of firearms was first aired by Gary Cases, a local dive resort owner and a commissioner in the Philippine Tourism Congress, after the Gilchrist shooting.
Resort owners said they are amenable do away with armed security guards and instead let the barangay tanods keep the peace in the island.
“We will need an ordinance. We repeated to them (the consequences) during the public hearing, and they told us again and again that they don’t need firearms. This is coming from the resort owners,” the vice governor said.
Magpale said they will ask the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) to field additional policemen in Malapascua. Only two policemen are stationed in the island which has a population of 2,000.
“We will request Col. (Noel) Gillamac (CPPO Chief), because Daanbantayan only has 25 policemen. The ratio is 1 for 3,444 residents. This is really insufficient,” she said.
“They’re asking to have at least six for Task Force Turista. So we need four more. The bigger problem there is that they don’t have a police outpost or building,” she added.
Magpale said she will allocate funds from her office for the construction of a police outpost in the island.