Bespectacled and clean shaven, 37-year-old Jomari Paraas could pass for a typical office employee in the Philippines, except he has six guns in his backpack that he will soon sell.
The father-of-two is a prolific player in the country’s enormous and lucrative weapons black market, which has been under scrutiny following a spate of high-profile massacres and shoot-outs this year.
“Why do I trade guns? Because there is a demand for it. And it’s extra income,” said Paraas, a former communist guerrilla whose day job as a community organiser for a non-government organisation is not enough to pay his bills.
Speaking in a crowded Manila slum where he was planning to sell the six guns, Paraas said he had been a firearms trader for more than a decade, starting in his late 20s when he quit the rebel movement.
Paraas is a made up name for security reasons, but his real identity has been vetted by a Filipino expert on security issues who advises local law enforcement officials on the gun trade.