[mrnoodle]

I initially said handgun, too, but the Philippines have extremely restrictive gun laws. They used to issue carry permits, but the president revoked them. Now, Filipinos are limited to two firearms -- a shotgun or .22 rifle and a handgun, both of which must be licensed, and they're not allowed to have them outside the home (even for transport), without a seperate license specifically for that purpose. Even then, they can't be carried as protection in cars. They have no constitutional protection in this regard, so the chances of her gun being taken away are pretty good in the long term. An article I found while googling "Philippines+gun+laws" says that half of the 1 million legal firearms owners failed to renew their licenses, and were ordered to surrender their firearms to the police.

Of course your friend could buy one in about 10 minutes from a street hood or one of the gangs of bandits that run around in the hills there, if they didn't shoot her first. I guess the government forgot to add "this means you, criminal" to the end of their law.