About the project

The PROGUN Crime Statistics Project is a public database of violent crime in the Philippines. It aims to provide an independent source for up-to-date crime data which can be used to challenge moves for inappropriate firearms restrictions.

We believe that responsible civilian firearms ownership is a crucial element in protecting the life, liberty, and property of our people.

This data will be used to support our belief that an armed citizenry would reduce violent crime by increasing the associated transaction costs. In other words, a criminal will be less likely to prey on people if it is possible that the potential victim can fight back on an equal footing.

However, unlike other statistics which simply give the final total, each of our incident reports are available for review and may be disputed by our audience. In addition, our numbers are updated as reports are added or removed from the database. This should therefore give the most impartial statistics available.

To view the data, please go to the Crime Statistics Page.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I contribute to this project?

Simply create an account on PROGUN and then login to the site. Under the left menu, you will see a ‘Create content’ > ‘Incident report option.

Please only add incidents that match the following criteria:

• The crime was violent in nature, regardless of the method used to perpetrated it.
• The incidents have been verified in the media e.g. by a newspaper, TV or radio report.
• You have a source for the report e.g. web address, publication details, or date and time or radio or news coverage.
• The incidents have not already been added.

2. How is your data different from other statistics?

This project is an independent database openly available to the public and compiled by the PROGUN community. Unlike other statistics which simply give the final total, each of our incident reports are available for review and may be disputed by our audience. In addition, our numbers are updated as reports are added or removed from the database. This should therefore give the most impartial statistics available.

3. Where do you source your data?

The incidents in our database come from actual reports from the media, such as online newspapers, TV or radio. The date, source and if possible, text of the report is copied so that the incident can be verified by the public.

This approach of using the media for gathering statistics is tried and tested. Iraq Body Count has successfully used this method for several years to compile independent data on civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

4. How accurate are these statistics?

If anything, these statistics would be an underestimation of the actual figures. This is because the database consists only of media reports that our small team of volunteer researchers have found in their spare time. The project started on May 4, 2010 (approximately three weeks prior to the time of writing this FAQ) so there are undoubtably many reports that we have missed. Furthermore, only incidents that have been reported in the media, and therefore independently corroborated, are included.

5. How do I dispute an incident?

If you feel that an incident was inappropriately added, please add your comment below the incident report. PROGUN volunteers monitor the comments and will take action by removing the figures from the total if the dispute is correct.

6. How do you deal with deaths in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)?

We avoid including reports about obvious ‘war zone’ clashes between military and militia in the ARMM. A valid argument for including them is that they are still deaths that were not prevented by any gun ban. Nevertheless, we feel that their inclusion may just open up the figures to the criticism of being skewed.

Incidents that are crime related, have been perpetrated on civilians or on off-duty soldiers are included.

If you would like to debate this point, please visit our forum discussion on this topic.