On the Eve of 2013 Elections: 1317 killed and 810 injured during the Comelec Gun Ban Period, to date.
This week the Philippine National Police and Secretary Mar Roxas released their crime figures for this 2013 election period as allegedly having only 17 violent crime incidents during this Comelec Gun ban. PROGUN disputes this since in reality on the eve of the 2013 elections, we have tallied a total of 1688 violent crime incidents, of which 1317 people have been killed and 810 have been injured, thus far. These figures surpass the previous record of violent crime incidents during a Philippine election which was previously held by the elections of 2001 under Chairman Alfredo Benipayo. As compared to the same period of 2010, during the last presidential elections, violent crime rate has risen by eight times.When public officials engage in intellectual dishonesty, and mislead the public, it is bad enough. However, deliberately misleading the public about the state of peace and order in our country, inculcates a false sense of security in the mind of the public that everything is in order and that our security is safe. This can have disastrous and deadly consequences, when as we are seeing now, that this false sense of secuirty mulls the public into complacency about personal security and safety, and over dependence upon the capabilities of the police who are incapable of protecting the public against this crime wave. The number of people killed and injured in the Philippines between January to May 2013 rivals that of Iraq and Afghanistan. Continue Reading