Police confiscated 15 illegal firearms in Pier 4, Cebu City on Thursday, July 19.
The guns, concealed in a bus aboard a roll-on, roll-off vessel, were bound for Ormoc City.
They were presented to the media by Cebu City Police Director Royina Garma.
Two men were arrested for having carried the weapons, Joel
Pedrosa, 45, and Hernan Gagmatan, 31, both from Marabot, Samar.
We commend the police for intercepting these smuggled firearms and look forward to more and more operations to disarm criminal elements across the country. Such is requisite to public safety and to the reduction of violence in the anti-drug crackdown.
That the weapons were being transported out of Cebu City tells us anew that Cebu is an important location in the circulation of illegal guns.
The interrogation of Pedrosa and Gagmatan should be so tactical as to yield information that will lead to the fall of lawless gun makers and traders, especially in Cebu that of late has been subjected to shooting deaths every day.
The duo should be thoroughly protected from those who would benefit from their silencing, their liquidation.
The determination and success of the police to run after, prosecute and jail the sources of guns will help prove their sincerity in using force during their operations only when necessary.
It will help ensure that suspects tied to illegal narcotics will have nothing with which to fight back the police who pursue them, and deprive scalawags in uniform of an excuse for unwarranted or disproportionate gun use in law enforcement.
Yesterday was another bloody Friday.
In separate incidents in Talisay City, four people were shot to death: Art Stephen Bas, son of former Lagtang Barangay Chairman Mark Ferdinand; Yayam Gaviola, Marwin Abelgas, and Rabadon Jovencio, all inmates inside a Talisay City Jail vehicle.
Four-year-old Bladen Skyler Abatayo, killed by a stray bullet amid a botched police operation, will be buried today.
Art, Yayam, Marwin, Rabadon, Bladen Skyler. Are we to just stand by in silence while the weapons manufacturers and sellers who equip the executioners of our sons live on and prosper?
May our law enforcers give us an answer that cuts the cycle of violence among the lawless and among their ranks.
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