PRESIDENTIAL PREROGATIVE

Finally, US President Obama has given the imprimatur for the institution of gun control in America.  It should be nice to know that President  Aquino has also announced, even before Obama did, his own wish for gun controls in these parts -- albeit not total, and that is well taken.     But look at the big difference.  Obama announced his gun control policy complete with specific instructions and procedures on how he wants it done.   Here, the president simply vocalizes his own imprimatur for gun controls, providing not total,  period.  In other words, without listing down the related  guidelines, so as to forestall  any misinterpretation in the implementation down the line.   And so the police, the military and all others concerned would most probably implement quite differently from one another, or according to their respective styles, in turn spawning public confusions and eventually making the gun controls more of the ningas-kugon kind.

In a more or less related development, it is certainly the very first time to happen in this country's history  that a sitting President has been given exemption from the gun ban during the election season.  No one may of course theoretically quarrel with the Commission on Elections in justifying the presidential exemption, saying that if all members of the military are exempt, why, indeed, should the President be not exempt, being the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.  To some extent, methinks the Comelec may have just conveniently ignored the fact that even military personnel are strictly not exempt from the gun man when they are off-duty as such.  And it may well be said the President is primarily a civilian and merely "on-call" as military commander-in-chief most of the time.  As a matter of fact, there may be reason to believe that the President had not himself even thought of that justification when he asked for exemption.  It is more likely that it was the Comelec, not wanting to antagonize the President by gong against his presidential prerogatives,   that has ever thought of that otherwise rather lame justification -- strictly speaking, that is.

But whether that alibi had originated or not from the President, or merely unilaterally supplied by Comelec is  beside the point.  The point is it should be comparatively  nicer to think that all of our past Presidents had always realized and were fully convinced that in any organization, or in all relationships between the governor and the governed, the former must always set the example, so that none of the latter  may ever have the slightest reason for refusing to follow.  Moreover, the plain truth is most gun owners do want to have guns for their personal protection --   the kind of personal protection that the president unquestionably doesn't need at all because wherever he goes he is always surrounded by armies of gun-toting security protectors, all  ready and willing to die to bodily protect him.  That he wants to keep his guns not as much for such personal protection as to merely freely indulge in his shooting hobby -- during the election season when everybody else religiously abides by the gun ban -- is quite ironically reflective of an utter lack of personal discipline.   In my humble opinion, that mirrors  extreme imperviousness   to ideas and impressions conformable to human  society. That cannot but leave some bitterness in the people's mouth.  Of course, the President  may just be wanting to pursue non-stop an otherwise not undesirable hobby.  What can we do if to not set the right example is truly the President's style of governance?   It is just that such style inevitably turns difficult for right-thinking Filipinos to swallow as people hear him loudly shouting to the four winds,  practically telling them: "Smoking is a vice, stop it!.  But don't look at me, I am the President!!"