The Bacolod City government is in the thick of preparing for the two-day hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation on April 29-30 at the SMX Convention Center.

Although this is just a couple of days, delegates from 21-member nations will start coming in days before the actual economic summit and in those two days, all eyes will be on our city.

It will be a chance for us to be recognized globally and as such, security measures are a priority to ensure the delegates’ safety, including members of the international press who are expected to cover the event.

The Bacolod City Police Office is planning to deploy 2,300 policemen, 600 of which from our own city police force while the rest from other parts of Region 6. These cops will be deployed around hotels and the convention center as well as along major thoroughfares.

With traffic already starting to get heavy in major streets despite the parking ban along the two main streets of Lacson and Araneta, these policemen will ensure delegates are not stuck in traffic. For such an important meeting and with high-profile officials from other countries in attendance, some of them will have very tight schedule to follow including how many minutes it will take to reach the venue from their hotels and the likes.

But more so for security reasons, these officials must not be caught in a traffic jam where their safety may be compromised.

I totally support the request of Bacolod Police chief, Sr. Supt. Melchor Coronel to declare a week-long gun ban from April 25, when delegates are expected to start flying in, until May 1, when all of them have left our city.

Coronel also requested the partial closure of Burgos, Fernando and Palanca streets and while this may inconvenience the locals, it is a small sacrifice to ensure the safety of our guests. As it is now, because of road repairs, these streets, at least the one along Burgos which I’ve passed by are totally closed.

Back to the gun ban, this is a serious thing that the city council has to consider especially just right after the apprehension of six men armed with unlicensed guns in Barangay Felisa last Sunday.

These men claimed they were members of the Asian Anti-Communist League in the Philippines, Malacanang Active Forces which, horrifyingly presented a resolution from Barangay Felisa allowing them to maintain peace and order in their community.

If this resolution is indeed for real, this begs some answers from barangay officials of Felisa and what got into their mind to even allow the existence of such in their area. Worse, barangay officials cannot wash their hands off this especially since these men have been conducting their own check-point operations in their village.

This brings to mind a story way back involving the brother of actor, Robin Padilla, who was a member of this world peace army or something of that nature – laughable but very dangerous.

And what is an Asian Anti-Communist league? Or even the Malacanang Active Forces? Didn’t it ever dawn on these barangay officials to check the veracity of these claims? Just the name itself is doubtful that this is a legitimate armed group. I do hope barangay officials will answer these allegations.

Stories like these warrant that we heed the call of Coronel to impose a gun-ban in our city while the APEC is ongoing. We don’t want that all those preparations be put to waste because we have one gun-toting incident that will mar the whole event and put our city in a bad light, not just within our country but in the whole world who will be watching the entire proceedings.

There have been a lot of stories of madmen here and around the world and we cannot risk any of that. Coronel is right, the success of our APEC hosting does not just lie on the city government or the security forces but the full cooperation of our people.*