Why is it that everytime there’s a spike in cases of violence against journalists, lawyers, judges and, of late, priests, the usual knee-jerk reaction is to call on the government to allow them to carry guns so they can defend themselves?
The same predicable and automatic response to killings we heard from no less than President Rodrigo Duterte himself, who, during the oath-taking of 3,100 newly elected Central Luzon barangay captains in Clark, Pampanga, recently, said he was considering arming barangay chiefs so they can protect themselves amid the perceived rise in criminality and the persistence of the problem of illegal drugs at the barangay level.
“I might consider arming you. If…in my assessment and evaluation—and I will also ask the police and intelligence community —if you are really into fighting crime, I may [give you the right to possess] and to carry firearms,” Duterte said.
The Chief Executive also said he would give his full support to barangay officials who would get into trouble for helping the government in the war against drugs, and see to it that the armed forces and the Department of the Interior and Local Government would also stand solidly behind them in fighting criminals and illegal drugs.
Not unexpectedly, members of the political opposition have expressed strong opposition to the idea of arming barangay captains.
For one, Sen. Risa Hontiveros has emphasized that the proposal is fundamentally unsound, since the police should be allowed to carry firearms as part of their duty to maintain peace and order: “That is not the solution. That will only worsen the current situation.”
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice believes that arming barangay chiefs could lead to a “wild, wild West scenario” where political kingpins at the local level could build their own private armies and use them to commit acts of violence against their political adversaries.
Partylist Rep. Tom Villarin of Akbayan, for his part, said the idea is a “recipe for disaster,” since loose firearms is already a big problem, while Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat opined that barangay officials should only support the police in law enforcement by monitoring the crime situation in their areas of jurisdiction and to report the more serious crimes to capable law enforcers.
Arming barangay captains is not the solution to widespread criminality and the continuing proliferation of illegal drugs. In fact, allowing 42,000 of them to carry firearms could embolden them to use these to settle personal grudges or to intimidate those who oppose their policies. The potential for abuse of power is so great that, instead of controlling crime, barangay officials could themselves be crime perpetrators. Let’s leave the task of fighting crime to those properly trained for the job.
Are e-cigarettes safe?
At the Fifth Global Forum on Nicotine held at Marriott Hotel in Warsaw on June 14 to 16, around 500 medical experts, clinical researchers, academicians, consumers, vaping advocates and tobacco executives from 60 countries pushed for the regulation of electronic cigarettes and other low-risk, noncombustible, smokeless tobacco products, which they believe can save millions of smokers from premature death.
At present, some nations ban e-cigarettes, while 55 countries have some sorts of regulation. The Philippines, along with Malaysia, are the two Southeast Asian countries with large populations of e-cigarette users.
The electronic cigarette is a battery-operated device, which vaporizes water, nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerol and flavorings. The range of smoke-free tobacco products has expanded since then, after studies found that it is the tar from the burned cigarette, and not the nicotine, that is harmful to the body. E-cigarettes are only heated and, thus, do not produce tar, which contains thousands of chemicals.
“Clearly, tobacco use is extremely dangerous to health, and there should be support and intervention available to help people switch to lower-risk ways of using nicotine,” said Dr. Caitlin Notley of Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia (UK).
Dr. Colin Mendelsohn of the University of New South Wales in Australia said the addiction to vaping is not as strong as it is to smoking. “More important, what it achieves is it removes the harm from smoking. You remove the harm by taking away the smoke. What kills people is the smoke. The nicotine is relatively harmless. It is what people get addicted to, but it has relatively minor health effects,” he said.
“The tobacco harm reduction is about eliminating the harm. It is not about necessarily eliminating nicotine. We are not too worried about the nicotine. We just want to stop the smoke, which could kill them,” said Mendelsohn.
Dr. Paul Newhouse of Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine unveiled results of studies showing that nicotine stimulation improved memory and cognitive functioning, and helped alleviate depression among select study participants.
Sarah Jakes, a United Kingdom-based consumer group representative, said vaping is equally pleasurable but less risky than the traditional burning of cigarettes. According to the 2015 report of Public Health England, e-cigarettes are 95-percent less harmful than smoking, as the harmful chemicals present in cigarette smoke are either not present in e-cigarette vapor or only found at much lower levels.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.