Thirty years ago when l went to the Phillippines for the first time, l was surprised to find 6 - 8 heavily armed guards at banks when l went to change money. I got to talking with one and asked him why there was so much heavy artillery in the place. He replied that it was because the gangs used automatic weapons. Other people l got to know told me that there were around 300 private armies in the country. At the time one of the national sports was kidnapping ethnic Chinese business people and holding them for ransom. The ransoms were usually paid as the police were considered either incompetent or corrupt or both. As a result some of those private armies were paid for by Chinese business leaders sick of being kidnapping targets.
I got out of the bank as soon as l could.