GUNS SILENCED: The ceremonial sealing of gun muzzles of policemen to prevent indiscriminate firing from now until the New Year revelry is commendable more as a symbolic act, not as a practical anti-crime measure.

There could be some problem if a policeman has to fire his sealed weapon in meeting an emergency situation — while criminals are not similarly disadvantaged.

I have not tried it myself, but I was told that depending on some factors, such as the kind of gun and ammunition and the masking tape used, the slug could pierce the tape and go its normal trajectory.

In this case, the tape (initialed by the unit commander) will not be a hindrance, and policemen can go about their tasks normally. What the sealing of the muzzle aims to prevent and monitor is indiscriminate firing.

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MUSIC, NOT NOISE: In the ceremonial taping, Director General Nicanor Bartolome, Philippine National Police chief, also told his men all over the country to be more creative in making noise for the transition to 2012 without firing their weapons.

“We could welcome the New Year in a tradition by not firing guns,” the Top Cop said. “Instead we could use musical instruments in making noise in welcome.”

The line “Make music, not noise” should find resonance not only among policemen itching to pull the trigger, but also among civilians who love the sound of music.

On the psychological side, to relieve pressure to fire their hardly used service pistols, policemen should be scheduled to undergo periodic firing range courses — with ample bullets to expend.

I once had a policeman friend who thought of checking his trusted sidearm. When he opened it, ants crawled out – an indication of how long ago he had fired it!

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GUN-TOTING: There was a time when many of us reporters were wont to carry pistols tucked in the waist, not really with intent to kill but… well, it was a fad. (But we soon outgrew it.)

Many of us, especially those who could afford precision models and had some background (like officers’ training school), went on to hone their marksmanship and bring home medals and trophies.

The acid test then was precision shooting, slow fire, with open sight (no optical devices), where shooters aimed to hit a 3-inch-diameter bulls-eye 25 yards away.

Original and reloaded wad-cutter ammo was expensive, so we scoffed at those who “wasted” boxes of bullets in practical or combat shooting (which is now in vogue).

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PALACE REVAMP: President Noynoy Aquino has revealed in a TV interview his intention of shuffling or changing some of his close-in advisers, including his legal team. I take this to mean that he is not that happy with their performance.

It finally got to him, I suppose, that he may have lost a number of key cases before the Supreme Court not really because the tribunal was/is headed by an appointee of his predecessor, but because his lawyers’ citations and legal arguments were weak.

A number of legal luminaries, some of them senators and anxious friends of the administration, have suggested that maybe it was time the President changed his lawyers.

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NO EXCUSES: If there are dejected politicians whose reflex is to whine that they did not lose an election but were only cheated at the polls, there are lawyers who tell their clients that they lost the case because the judge was bought by the other party.

This excuse is, of course, oftentimes not true. It is usually just a coverup for incompetence.

This is not to say that the lawyers servicing the President are incompetent. It may just be that in the rush to write an executive issuance, a brief, or a draft complaint, they miss out on essential details.

It is obvious that some of them have not adjusted to the work style in the Palace of delaying important decisions and then rushing things at the last minute.

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RUSH JOB: The impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona, widely perceived as having emanated from Malacañang, is a good example of a rush patch-up job.

Even before Benigno Simeon Aquino III was sworn in as President way back in 2010, he already proclaimed his disdain for CJ Corona, going to the extent of refusing to take his oath before the Chief Justice as tradition would have it.

It was clear that the President wanted Corona ousted so he could appoint his preferred chief justice. But it took him 19 long months to, as they say, go for the jugular.

When he finally said Go!, his legal team rushed an impeachment compliant for the House of Representatives to send to the Senate before the senators went on their Christmas break.

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FATAL FLAW: The hurried patchwork is evident. Most of the 188 congressmen who signed it did so without even reading it or examining the evidence supposed to have been submitted with the complaint.

But how could they have read it when the text was at the time still being printed? In fact, when they rushed the documents to the Senate the next day, there were not enough copies. Its receipt was thus delayed until enough of them were printed, bound and delivered.

In the rush, somebody forgot about the requirement for the complaint to be verified, with the congressmen saying under oath that they had appeared before the notary and read and understood the complaint and assessed the evidence.

Some lawyers are saying that that required detail alone may derail the trial once it is raised in objection. That is merely a defect in form, but it could be fatal, they said.

One steps into more foggy areas upon examining the meat, the substance, of the eight items in the Articles of Impeachment.