Kroc Institute: In the field

Marco Garrido ('02)

As the so-called “second front” in the war against terrorism, the Philippines has received a massive amount of military aid from the United States. The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged the Philippine government more than $100 million in military equipment alone; this includes transport vehicles, high-tech gadgets, and a whole lot of weapons — some 30,000 M-16 rifles, to be exact.

While these weapons are intended to help the Armed Forces of the Philippines eradicate the nettlesome Abu Sayyaf bandits, their light weight and high value make them especially prone to ending up in the country’s thriving small arms black market. As it is, small arms run rampant in the Philippines. There are well over a million firearms loose in society. Registered firearms account for 706,148, while those that are unregistered number some 349,782. In Mindanao, more than 70 percent of the population owns one or more guns. Machine-guns can be bought for as little as $375 and revolvers for a mere $15.

Gun-crazy
The demand for small arms is great, and the sources of this demand are various and complex. Insurgent groups obviously demand arms in order to wage their causes. In the same way, criminal groups such as the Abu Sayyaf require arms to carry out their criminal activities. The patent lawlessness of these groups, however, sets them apart. But the demand for or, more accurately, the fascination with arms and being armed does not alleviate in the mainstream. More ingrained and insidious justifications take hold, whether for protection, power, or prestige, or to accord with supposed tradition. In cultural terms, being armed becomes a proxy for manifesting personal prowess (although in truth all that a gun bestows is power). Likewise, family prowess, measured in a family’s ability to dominate or win elections, is greatly enhanced by its “show of force,” which roughly equates to its show of arms. In this manner, many a clan dispute is settled, law evaded, and election decided.

Gun-running
Three sources largely account for the abundant availability of small arms in Philippine society: local manufacture, smuggling, and diversions from government stocks. Forty-five or so local manufacturers of firearms, or paltik, provide an easy and affordable supply of guns not only domestically but throughout the region. Japanese yakuza regularly import paltik from Mandaue or Danao in Cebu, and even smuggle in Filipino gunsmiths; in fact, the Philippines ranks third among countries in the production of seized handguns in Japan, and third again in the number of gun shipments foiled by the Japanese.

Small arms are also commonly smuggled into the country through a number of “back doors.” Smuggled guns can be cheaper than their local counterparts and need not be licensed. Moreover, shipments made in connivance with foreign governments or organizations often go to arm domestic insurgency groups. China once shipped arms to the New People’s Army, as did both Libya and Malaysia to Muslim secessionist groups in Mindanao. More recently, arms shipments to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front from Afghanistan have allegedly emanated from al-Qaeda and been financed by Osama bin Laden. Some of the money that goes to purchasing these arms may even be pilfered from aid allocated for developmental purposes. Finally, through loss, thievery, or sale, government munitions end up in the wrong hands. There is certainly no shortage of buyers, and the lucrative black market for small arms can prove an irresistible temptation to underpaid and enterprising soldiers. The influx of new small arms from the United States can only augment that temptation.

Bullet-riddled security
The toll small arms take on state and human security is enormous. Their unchecked availability makes them highly susceptible to misuse. Small arms enable armed conflict, crime, and general lawlessness, and generally foster a climate of insecurity and fear. In terms of armed conflict, the free flow of these weapons not only arm insurgents but also the communities near where insurgents operate. Reactionary and vigilante groups, assembled for defense, retribution, or offense, escalate the level of violence. The conflict thoroughly permeates communities as each becomes another front in an enlarging civil war.

Small arms likewise enable crime. Not only do they endow crime with a more violent character — small arms are routine implements in homicide (82 percent) and murder (78 percent) in the Philippines — but are themselves a reason to engage in criminal activity, since their smuggling is lucrative business. Not to mention, of course, that troublesome criminal cum terrorist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf would not be half as effective in sowing terror if they went about brandishing bolos rather than ArmaLites.

Compounding the rampancy of small arms is the Philippine government’s inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to do very much about it. Smuggled guns, as I mentioned, escape government detection and often fall into criminal hands. Between 1993 and 1999, for example, 93 percent of the firearms involved in criminal cases were unlicensed. Meanwhile, the government can do little more than tout small victories, all but imperceptible given the scale of the problem. In observation of Small Arms Destruction Day in 2001, despite the hundreds of thousands of small arms available, Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Joey Lina could only produce 300 for destruction.

The free flow of small arms conduces to a general disorder that undermines human security in a variety of sinister ways. Conflict results in displacement and deprivation, insurgency groups degenerate into criminal gangs that prey on communities, which arm themselves to the hilt in response; a climate of fear deepens. Developmental functions fail and further development is discouraged. Basic services such as health care cease being delivered into embattled communities; development projects cannot be implemented; schooling is interrupted as young people are conscripted to fight or simply because going to school has become too dangerous; democracy becomes a farce as candidates buy or bully votes through a show of arms; private armies allow rich families to evade or even break laws with impunity; a poison takes over people’s minds, hate and fear seed further conflict; a climate of insecurity deepens insecurity.

While the rampancy of small arms is not the only factor deepening human insecurity in the Philippines, its agency is unmistakable.

Marco Garrido (M.A. ‘02) is a writer for the Asia Times, covering peace and development issues. Born in the Philippines, Marco immigrated to the U.S. with his family at age 9 and completed a B.A. in English and American Literature at Harvard University in 2000. After graduating from the Kroc Institute, Garrido completed a Kroc post-M.A. internship at Focus on the Global South, a development think tank in Manila, focusing on trade, conflict, and the war on terror.

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