In the last few days since the aftermath of the floods brought about by Typhoon Ondong, nearly ONE MILLION PEOPLE have been displaced. Chaos has reigned. As usual, there are no government, police or barangay personnel around to maintain law and order in the immediate vicinity of the affected areas. Along with the massive destruction and misery upon our people, now come the looters and thieves who would who see the absence of law and order as an opportunity to pillage the victims’ properties.
What irks me is that we have all seen this before; this is nothing new. We have never learned our lesson. During the Katrina disaster, wherein the entire city was forced to evacuate, there was also a breakdown of law and order which the local government was powerless to stop (as a result of Mayor Ray Nagin’s house to house disarming of the population). In ’92 we witnessed the Rodney King Riots in LA, wherein armed Korean shop owners in Central LA successfully protected their businesses from looting through neighborhood watch shifts. In the 80’s the hurricanes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida likewise had the same social breakdown, rioting, and looting, with homeowners’ families forced to wield rifles and shotguns to protect their homes.
There are clear lessons to be learned here. The common denominator of people who survived and lived through these disasters is that the survivors were ARMED AND WILLING TO PROTECT THEIR HOMES AND BUSINESSES. Period.
We cannot seem to learn the lesson, which seeps in everytime there is a disaster, that GOVERNMENT AND THE POLICE CANNOT PROTECT YOU ALWAYS, especially in a fastbreaking crisis such as this. More often than not, in such a crisis, the law enforcers are nowhere to be found, just like now. It is up to YOU to make it happen and protect yourself, your family, and your property. Having a gun in the house, no matter how abhorrent to some people, can certainly come in handy now – and more importantly may save lives and property.
I have a good friend that lives in Marikina and experienced all this lawlessness firsthand. He recounted that right outside the places where relief goods were being distributed, were a group of tambays and lowlifes. They would accost and threaten some people so as to take their goods — relief goods that they had stood hours in line to get!
He particularly remembered one old Lola who was in tears after being such an ordeal. He felt sorry for her, but knew that he had to look towards his own family’s needs first, so he went on home.
As sad and tragic this story is, what makes it worse is that I’m sure this wasn’t an isolated incident.
The most disturbing of all news was the live radio reports of “gun shots heard every night” of homeowners who had to fight off gangs of looters who were trying to steal everything they could get their hands on. Imagine yourself in such a situation: raining, cold, hungry, no water or electricity, standing guard alone over your house and belongings. No imagine yourself in the same situation, this time unarmed and without a gun. Terrible.
Way back in the late 60’s a big fire broke out in my hometown of Lucena City, that burned down about 25% of the town. Though our house was some distance away, we prepared to evacuate, just in case, piled our valuables inside our cars and some at our frontyard. Naturally, this “attracted some vultures”, especially there were only four of us in the household, with both my parents away.
As a precautionary measure, I brought out my Dad’s hunting shotgun, a Remington 870 with a 28″ barrel. The sight of an overweight, freckle-faced 15-year old boy must have been intimidating. The voltures made themselves scarce.
Hoo-rah, Googie. That may have been decades ago but that image of 15-year old you with that 870 is awesome! Hope you still have that 870.
Ondoy was a natural disaster.One of our neighbors had her house torn down before Ondoy to save on land tax. Ondoy did away with her walls, thus exposing our community to robbers coming from the creek side of our community. We’ve since covered that breach with razor wire, employed a night watchman, put in voluntary sleepless nights among many residents, prevented numerous invasions, caught several kids robbing an abandoned house on several occassions, drove away intruders, and have been waging a running battle of wills and wits with the injuns. And these are lingering effects of Ondoy!
Imagine if during this election period, some ill-willed politicians/personalities wanted to create a state of rebellion, revolution or anarchy, gather lots of sympathizers, including paid ones, and set them loose on the streets, and these lead to home invasions and massive looting. What do we do?
We have a village/community watch where we live and we will extend the security watch awareness to all residents and coordinate with neighboring communities for cooperation and inter-operability. Those without community watches, better start organizing one now.
I also hope you can prepare your “Own Private Idaho” or “Alamo” for you and loved ones, along with proper escape routes. I guess gunfire may become the norm if this happens.