Deadly weapons

Since I became news editor, it has been my habit to read all stories and articles that come out in all newspapers, and that includes even legal notices and advertisements. Leafing through the pages of The STAR yesterday, I came across an “Invitation to Bid” with the letterhead of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Republic Act 9184, or the Government Procurement Policy Board Act, of course, requires all government agencies and offices to publish any of their public bidding for transparency. But what surprised me, or rather shocked me, was the subject matter of the public bidding announcement of the PNP.

Invoking a provision of the General Appropriations Act of 2014, the PNP invited interested bidders “for the supply and delivery of 568 units of Submachine Gun.”

Himself a gun enthusiast, President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III is obviously making sure our cops would have the best weapons to help them perform their duties “to serve and protect” the people.

The President earlier led the distribution of the first tranche of P1.198 billion worth of Glock 17 Generation 4. Its full delivery was completed this year. The PNP acquired a total of 74,879 Glocks that were said to be the biggest single procurement in the history of the police organization.

In August last year, the PNP has 146,085 uniformed personnel and 73,797 firearms. But with the latest procurement of 74,879 Glock pistols, it was expected to achieve the ideal ratio of one firearm for one policeman.

As stated in the bid notice, the PNP said it intends to apply the sum of P133,798,080 as basis for the payment of submachine guns being procured under the “Approved Budget for the Contract” of the PNP this year. 

The “Invitation to Bid” was placed by the PNP Bids and Awards Committee based at the PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame in Quezon City. Police Director Juanito Bungay Vaño Jr., who identified himself as the chairman of the National Headquarters BAC, heads the committee.

The PNP-BAC bidding “will be conducted through open bidding using a non-discretionary ‘pass/fail’ criterion” as specified in the Implementing rules and regulations of RA 9184. Bidding is open to all interested bidders, whether local or foreign, subject to the conditions for eligibility provided in the IRR of RA 9184.

The PNP will hold a pre-bid conference on Nov. 7 and set the opening of the bids on Nov. 21 at the PNP main conference room. The PNP reserves the right to accept or reject any bid, even “to annul the bidding process and to reject all bids at any time prior to contract award, without incurring any liability to the affected bidder or bidders.”

That’s presumably a catchall exit provision in the usually highly contentious public bidding wars. As I’ve said before, bidding in government projects is like joining elections in the Philippines: nobody loses but losers can always claim they were cheated.

Such claims of alleged “rigged” bidding, or that the winning bidder allegedly had “padrinos” or powerful government officials backing them; kickbacks or commissions; or tong-pats passed through hands, are just among the usual complaints of losing bidders. Whether true or not, the PNP is among these government agencies that are usually bedevilled by such allegations from losing bidders.

The PNP earlier scrapped an alleged questionable P391-million procurement of 3,330 assault rifles after the President Aquino found the deal to be overpriced.
Based on the President’s own Google search, the price of the rifle should only be at most P40,000 apiece and not P80,000. The original price of the rifle was P150,000, then it went down to P119,000.

In spite all of these ghost deals past, the PNP is fortunate to have the full presidential backing for their requirements even as their PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima is embroiled in a controversy over his official and personal properties. Purisima partly blamed his woes to an alleged smear drive against him by unscrupulous groups he eased out from their hanky-panky transactions with the PNP.

Apparently, the PNP got the go-signal to proceed with the procurement of their new submachine guns. Not knowing anything about guns, I asked the guys in our office what are submachine guns and they gave me a wide list of assault rifles like M-16, Heckler & Koch, Uzi, Ingram, Steyr & Aug, AK-47, Galil, among them.

Policemen carrying deadly and powerful firearms such as these submachine guns must not only be skilled. They must especially be the more responsible officers on when to use extreme force that could kill, not just maim.

The PNP is replete with horror stories of police operations against armed criminals and organized syndicates where innocent civilians and bystanders are caught in the crossfire. The most horrific one was the fierce shootout between cops and robbers in a subdivision in Paranaque City in December 2008. A seaman on vacation and his eight-year-old daughter caught in the middle of the encounter were killed by the hail of bullets while inside their vehicle.

Even for trained policemen assigned at the Special Weapons and Tactics or Special Action Forces, who are usually assigned to carry and handle these submachine guns, it is no guarantee that innocent ones will not be injured, if not killed by “friendly” fire.

This was the case of the botched police rescue operations during the ill-fated Luneta bus hostage incident in August 2010. Eight Hong Kong tourists on board the bus were killed by a lone hostage-taker — a dismissed police officer who still carried his service weapons.

And who could forget the most recent incident involving rogue cops led by a police colonel who allegedly wanted to eliminate a jueteng lord in Quezon province. The National Bureau of Investigation recommended the filing of murder charges against the officer and his group of policemen for the murder of 13 people on board several vehicles who were fired upon by heavily armed government forces when they allegedly tried to evade a joint police-military checkpoint in Atimonan, Quezon on Jan. 6, 2013. 

Policemen with trigger-happy fingers should not possess such deadly weapons. Worse, if these deadly weapons — paid for by taxpayers’ money — are given to so-called “hoodlums in uniform.”