ALLOWING journalists to carry firearms outside their homes will not solve the current wave of media killings in the Philippines. In fact, licensed guns in the hands of journalists is a recipe for disaster. Most journalists are not trained in the use of firearms and may do them more harm than good.

In our days as reporters during the 60s, we had unlimited access to carrying sidearms and even rifles if we so desired because we were assigned to cover on a daily basis the Philippine Armed Forces and the Defense Department. We went where the action was, and were exposed to the same danger like the combat officers and men we were tailing.

Thank God none in our group of military reporters was even grazed by a stray bullet in covering clashes between troops and the rebel New People’s Army or had been injured in frequent ambushes of convoys responding to radio calls from beleaguered far-flung army outposts.

But times have changed, for the worst in the case of today’s journalists. In the old days, the threat against journalists, if at all, were the NPAs out to score points by drawing attention to their cause. Nowadays, media men, especially in radio and television, are under siege from all sides: rebels, politicians, drug lords, corrupt cops and soldiers, crime syndicates, vested interests, and hired assassins.

No wonder the Philippines has been dubbed as the world’s murder capital of crusading journalists. Not a day passes without one of their ranks being shot dead, maimed, or otherwise intimidated and cowed into silence.

Regrettably, the authorities are slow in bringing the perpetrators to justice. In many cases, the casualties remain as crime statistics with no one really pushing for the solution of the murders. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists keeps a running tally of media victims but beyond raising its customary serious concern for working journalists, it is powerless to move governments to take action.

The Aquino Administration recently made a feeble attempt to “protect” them by allocating five million pesos (roughly $100,000) to go after their killers and help the families of the victims.

The government needs to do more than that. It should create a task force of elite law enforcement agencies with the sole purpose of tracking down the suspects, the masterminds and prosecuting them to the hilt.

Piecemeal police work won’t do. And creating an “Association of Armed Journalists” as some Manila newsmen propose to do won’t work either.