FIRST there were journalists, then there were drug personalities, priests and now mayors. Indeed bullets do not choose their targets but gunmen do and they do it no matter how far or near they are to their subjects.
The recent killing of Tanauan City mayor Antonio Halili was a daring attempt to his life that made the shooter successful. It was a sniper shot that fell the local chief executive during their Monday's flag-raising ceremony right in front of the city hall.
There are two videos that instantly went viral, showing city hall officials and employees singing the national anthem until they were stopped by a gunshot sound and a mayor who seemed to seek cover after being hit in the chest.
As shocked employees scampered away, no one had the idea of where might the sniper positioned himself until later investigation revealed that he was on the grassy elevated portion of the city hall compound. This proved that the shooting was well planned.
Investigators seemed to be in quandary now while investigating the motive on the killing. The late mayor's name was included in the narcolist submitted to President Rodrigo Duterte for his massive crackdown on illegal drug activities. However, the late mayor also had his way in combatting illegal drug activities through his shame campaign, parading drug suspects in public.
Some speculators aired that it was the government's campaign against illegal drugs that led to the demise of Mayor Halili because of his alleged involvement while some believe that drug lords did it to silence him and refrain from singing tunes.
No matter what the motive of the killing is, it created a new trend on killing people being targeted from afar. Since the Marawi siege has long been over, snipers are now doing their stuff in some places.
With this, we may expect that bullet proof vests shall become popular now.
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Newly elected barangay officials have assumed their respective offices recently. They are waiting meanwhile for the plans of Pres. Duterte of arming them for their protection and to help in the anti-criminality and anti-illegal drugs campaign of the national government.
For the responsible gun handlers, firearms are in good hands. For the trigger-happy, firearms are deadly.
We can never tell how would the plan of arming barangay officials result into until we try and until someone innocent gets killed by the armed. As anti-gun advocates often say, guns don't die but people do.
Some citizens would like their officials be armed. Some do not. Should the plan of arming them push through, the Philippine National Police should consider the track record and history of barangay officials in terms of their psychological behavior, their involvement in misdemeanors and their rates in anger management.
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