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“We got (our gun culture) from the Americans. Because we were under the Americans before. We learned many good things from the Americans, but what we learned most was this addiction to violence, to guns.” – Gunless Society founder Nandy Pacheco in Filipinos Debate Link Between Guns, Violent Crime [at voanews.com]

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46 COMMENTS

  1. “what we learned most was this addiction to violence, to guns.”

    Absolute BS. When Clark Air Base was open, crime was so bad from locals trying to penetrate the base and cause havoc, we staffed it with the largest contingent of Security Police in the world. We had so many cops on the base, it was considered the 3rd largest police force in the world. I remember that more SPs died in the line of duty at Clark than all other USAF bases in the world. Like I said, that statement above is pure, unadulterated BS.

    • I spent a good portion of my childhood on Kadena Air Base. From what I understood of Clark, the 1991 volcanic eruption was a fitting end for the base.

    • And that witch Aquino made it easier for the thieves to get away with it. She forbid the use of dogs, required SPs to disengage if they made it to the fence (provided it wasn’t already stolen too) and when Pinatubo blew demanded the US clean up the base AND pay millions for another lease.

      I do miss the nightlife………….

  3. Oh good grief. People need to read Philippine history. It’s almost impossible to believe that this person doesn’t understand his own history, so that must make him one big liar.

    Americans may have introduced them to the gun, but violence has always been a popular contact sport there. The gun just made it more possible to be violent from a distance, though I think they’ve played with bombs for a long time.

    But they are no different than most people of the world, in fact, and the Philippinos have no history of pacifism.

    • The Spanish, who were in charge there for a couple of centuries before we Americans showed up would have introduced them to the gun.

      Dood knows little of his own history.

      • That is a very good point in that Dad was in the Philippines in 1945 to 1946 and he thought the islands were closer to a Spanish Latin American culture than anything else. Some very rich ruling class people and a lot of very poor people with very little middle class. A lot of government with a lot of ungoverned areas.

  4. “We learned many good things from the Americans, but what we learned most was this addiction to violence, to guns…”

    Talk about being fixated on your own ideas. Is this really what they learned most from America? Even if there is a grain of truth to this ludicrous statement, I suspect watching American television and movies has far more to do with any cultural violence issues than does gun ownership. Maybe they learned it from the Spaniards?

    The article also mentions the Moros. Do Filipinos really want to disarm in the face of a violent Muslim rebellion? Also, I doubt the Moros acquired full auto AK47s and RPGs from civilian gun owners.

    If this article is representative of what Voice Of America has become, then they have fallen far indeed since the days when they where the only voice of freedom for millions around the world. Voice Of Obama?

  5. Before we came, they were a bolo culture. Of course, they had firearms when they fought the Spanish, us and the Japanese, but it’s us that caused them to be violent. I guess the Catapoonan under Bonafacio doesn’t count.

  7. Wikipedia has a more complete explanation, but since the Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1896 the Philippines has been a violent place. The corrupt Marco’s regime in the 70s made the whole nation a mess. Since the Marco’s were ousted there has been political instability that has hampered economic productivity. With poor economy comes crime and violence. The USA has nothing to do with it, the USA is often useful to blame depending on what you are trying to achieve. The violence in the Philippines today is all self inflicted.

    • I wouldn’t go quite that far, Pascal. Americans most certainly ADDED to the violence in the Philippines. As US waging war has done for most of the globe by now.

      1899 – 1913 – Philippine-American War

      Just wasn’t the CAUSE of all the violence there, by any means.

  9. Blaming others and not yourself. Just like those apologists blaming society when their “good little angel” turns into a strong-arm thug who robs convenience stores.

  10. What HE got was left wing BS from America and elsewhere. A violent war loving tribal society that has been chopping off heads and burying casaualties for several millenia. It is popular now in PH to play the blame game for the hell hole PH is today. Guns have nothing to do with the underlying cultural problems.

  11. The PI is a crap hole that could be awesome but I have run in to far too many people like him who blame everything but themselves for their problems.

  12. Sorry, Mr. Pacheco, but you’re wrong. Violence as always been in history of the islands… even if the Spanish and the Americans brought guns, it was still there before in the form of inter-tribal warfare. Even ‘ol Magellan himself died in there because of violence.

    I got plenty of Filipino American friends who love visiting, but swear they’ll never raise their kids their because of the violence and poverty. Not to mention I have gun owning friends who are Filipino American and they have zero problem being safe with guns.

  14. He has forgotten his history.

    When Marcos seized power using a false flag excuse, Marcos instituted martial law. One of the edicts was General Order #6. If caught with a weapon, often you was taken into custody by the military, never to be seen again, or “Salvaged”, your dead, tortured body found on the road as a warning to others.

    You can read it here:

    “GENERAL ORDER No. 6
    WHEREAS, Proclamation No.1081, dated September 21, 1972, declaring a state of martial law throughout the land was issued because of wanton destruction of lives and property, wide- spread lawlessness and anarchy, and chaos and disorder now prevailing throughout the country, which condition has been the in- tended consequences of the activities of groups of men now actively engaged in criminal conspiracy to seize political and state power in the Philippines and to take over the Government by force and violence the extent of which has now assumed the proportion of an actual war against our people and their legitimate Government;
    WHEREAS, terroristic activities, assassination of innocent citizens and leaders of our society are going on unabated due to the mounting efforts of those radical and lawless elements who are now actively challenging and defying the Government through actual military confrontation; and
    WHEREAS, in order to restore the tranquility and stability of the nation and secure the people from violence, injuries and loss of lives in the quickest possible manner and time, it is necessary to prohibit the inhabitants of the country from keeping any firearm without a permit duly and legally issued for that purpose as well as to prohibit the carrying of such firearm outside the residence of the duly licensed holder thereof;
    NOW, THEREFORE, I, Ferdinand E. Marcos, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and pursuant to Proclamation No.1081 dated September 21, 1972, do hereby order that henceforth and until otherwise ordered by me or by my duly designated representative, no person shall keep, possess or carry outside of his residence any firearm unless such person is duly authorized to keep, possess or carry any such firearm and any person violating this order shall forthwith be arrested and taken into custody and held for the duration of the emergency unless ordered released by me or by my duly designated representative.
    Done in the City of Manila, this 22nd day of September in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-two.”

    End

    If memory serves me correct, Marcos planned an attack on his Secretary of Defense. The Secretary (who was in on it), survived. This gave Marcos the excuse to institute Martial Law.

    Something tells me this clown is a holdover or sympathizer for the Marcos regime.

    I fear that the Obama regime will try the same tactic to declare war on us Patriots.

  15. As a legacy of American colonial rule, there has always been a tendency among certain elements in Filipino politics (not necessarily all on the left, either,) to blame the USA for problems in their society. Manuel Quezon, a nationalist who served as head of the Commonwealth in the ’30s, under US rule, exemplified this attitude when he allegedly said: “Damn the Americans, why don’t they tyrannize us more?”

    Some of them may have a little bit of validity. But I think that violence is not something that America (or Spain, for that matter,) brought to the islands.

    Gun control, of course, was an attitude that was also shared by another leader of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. One of Marcos’ first acts after imposing martial law in 1972 and trashing the constitutional liberties of Filipinos was to impose a wide-ranging gun control regime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_Philippines

    So Mr. Pacheco might be correct in saying that America did bring a ‘gun culture’ of sorts to the islands, and that gun control is an idea with indigenous origins. I can’t say that this is something that recommends his position, though.

  16. The larger issue is the sponsorship of the nonsense by the Voice or America. The little article in the link is an illogical conflation of all the usual anti rhetoric, strung together in the belief that co-location equals causation. Perhaps Bloomberg and the Moms fund this guy and the VOA?

  17. I didn’t realize that kali and arnis were American inventions. Apparently Filipinos didn’t even know how to fight before the Americans came. They just threw flowers at each other whenever there was a disagreement.

    When foreign nations invaded, they invited them to dinner and had long conversations over adobo about how unenlightened it was to invade peaceful nations. All parties then left as friends with full bellies and warm hearts. Even a casual examination of the island nations history will prove this is true.

    Also guns are synonymous with violence in Tagalog, Filipinos didn’t even have a word for violence before the Americans came.

    These are true fact from the internet.

  18. Hilarious! I l lived there for a year. I knew many people who owned guns illegally and none of them were criminals. Some lived in previous commie rebel hot spots. I met a guy while near a farm who had an M16 just due to that fact and he openly carried the rifle. Why do all of these people have these guns? Because they want to protect themselves. The criminals would exist whether these people had guns or not.

    • Ummmm…. do I? Doing something illegal, aka committing a crime. What is the definition of a criminal? But yes I see your point, a firearm shouldn’t be illegal.

  20. Guns don’t cause crime or determine the actions of people. There is no correlation between guns and violence. The extremely low crime rate with extremely high rate of gun ownership in Switzerland proves such.

    Granted, criminals will seek out guns. But just because a person owns guns doesn’t mean that person is violent or a criminal.

  22. Sounds like loser talk to me.

    Winners don’t have time for that shit, they fix themselves and stop blaming mommy and daddy for their issues.

  23. if you remove the phrase “to violence”, everything he is saying becomes very accurate and true – fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the context. Violence is innate and was not given, just ask Mayweather after May 2.

  26. I don’t know where they dug this guy up but here in Hawaii Tagalog is the predominate language at Ipsc competitions.

  27. This bible-thumping hypocritical asshole is a known nuisance here in my country when it comes to gun rights. Gun rights groups here like PROGUN hate the shit out of him.

    GS has been dead in the water lately. I see this as nothing more than a lame PR attempt so they could be relevant again.

    I dunno about him, but i for one am glad you guys gave us another method to protect ourselves. If you ask me, gun ownership is a universal right.

  30. That POS and all his damn libtard friends can speak for themselves! I live in the Philippines, and we stand with you in defense of liberty against retards and traitors like these. I made it a point to join the NRA and contribute financially to the NAGR and various gun rights organizations at the height of the Sandy Hook bruhaha. Unfortunately, we do not have the 2nd Amendment to protect our rights here, so that our means to self defense are constantly under attack and have been severely curtailed over the past 20 years. Our president likes to show everyone that he is an avid shooter, but he is spineless, an elitist and a great fan of obama, so you can see where all this is leading to. We understand that we must stand together, for if you fall, so will we.

  31. Did you know that before the the signing of the Declaration Of Independence not a single act of violence was ever committed in the history of the world? Only if America never existed the world would be all rainbows and butterflies

  32. You’ll see this with alot of island states. They have a problem they can’t resolve, but rather than trying to fix it they’re looking for someone to blame.
    Its never them. Its always someone else. Even when no one else is around.

  33. This guy is nuts. The cultural penchant for riots and their islamic insurgency are the problem. Not the guns.

  34. I have loved the Philippines since I stopped in for Jungle Survival School en route to Vietnam in 1971. Absolutely gorgeous country (I spent a week in the jungles as part of the school) and wonderful, hard working and honest people. 1985-91 I was stationed on Okinawa and got to Clark AB on a regular basis, and really wondered how the country had remained so incredibly poor. Came to find out the country’s REAL problem, corruption. When Marcos was ousted, several changes in government came and went, but not a sign of addressing corruption. On a visit in 2001, I finally figured it out. Corruption is and has been so permanent, all-encompassing, because every Filipino is convinced that sooner or later it will be his turn to collect the bribes and exercise power over others. Violence has little or nothing to do with the problems in the Philippines, and if they could straighten their act up, they could be the tourist destination from hell, their natural attractions are just incredible, and there are 7,000 islands to build resorts on! But no one is interested in building those resorts because there is no way to tell how much money will be demanded by corrupt officials in any given year.

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