No more tape on cops’ guns over the holidays this year —PNP

The Philippine National Police will no longer put tape on the muzzle of their guns this holiday season, a ranking official said on Monday.

It was PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa who issued the order, said Director Camilo Pancratius Cascolan, head of the PNP Directorate for Operations.

“It’s a directive from the chief PNP last command conference. This is to show the people that the PNP is a disciplined and trusted organization. In that case, it does not need muzzle taping,” Cascolan said in a text message.

Northern Mindanao regional director Chief Supt, Noel Constantino said the stop to the yearly practice is an attempt to raise the bar of discipline and promote responsible use of government-issued firearms among the police officers.

"The practice of muzzle taping only shows the distrust of the organization to its very own policemen such that we need to require unit commanders to physically put a tape around the muzzle of the firearms of policemen," he said in a press statement.

"The PNP leadership today trusts and treats every policeman as a responsible law enforcement officer and gun-holder who will not fire his firearms indiscriminately and will only fire it when it is extremely necessary to do so in the line of duty," he added.

Amid the non-taping of the gun muzzle, Constantino reiterated Dela Rosa’s warning against illegal discharge of firearms or indiscriminate firing.

"Those who will violate the directive on illegal discharge of firearms will be severely dealt with to the fullest extent of the law,” Constantino said quoting the PNP Chief.

It has been the yearly practice of PNP to tape the gun muzzle of the police personnel to make sure that they would not fire their guns as they welcome the New Year.

Since 2012, most of the victims of indiscriminate firing of guns during the Christmas and New Year revelry are children.

Records from the Department of Health’s National Epidemiology Center as of December 31, 2015, two of the four stray bullet victims were nine-year old girls.

However, the number of stray bullet cases is on a decreasing trend, based on data gathered by GMA News Research.

From 44 cases in 2010, the number of victims dropped to 13 in 2015.

Dr. Lyndon Lee Suy of DOH-NEC said the PNP’s efforts in the past years to discourage indiscriminate firing contributed to the decrease in the number of cases. —NB, GMA News