Palace sets 1-month gun amnesty in October

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo issued yesterday the executive order for the final general firearms amnesty program of the Philippine National Police (PNP), which would be in effect for only one month instead of the four months that the police previously announced.

Under Executive Order 817, the final firearms amnesty would be implemented from Oct. 1 to 31 this year.

“All individual and judicial entities may renew their expired licenses and/or register their unregistered firearms with the PNP,” the EO stated.

The PNP chief would come out with the implementing rules and regulations for the EO, subject to the concurrence of the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government.

All firearms owners who have expired licenses or who have never registered with the PNP before are encouraged to avail of the amnesty in order to avoid prosecution.

At the end of the amnesty period, the PNP, together with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Customs, Philippine Ports Authority, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and other law enforcement agencies would go after the owners of loose firearms.

“Pursuant to the duty of the state to protect its citizens and maintain peace and order, there is a need to implement a national firearms control program that would reduce the number of loose firearms by an average of three percent a month through aggressive continuing law enforcement actions, to include a general amnesty for loose firearms,” the EO stated.

“The proliferation of loose firearms has remained as a critical obstacle in the fight against criminality,” it added.

It was argued that the program would reduce the chances of loose firearms being used in election-related crimes, especially since elections would take place this coming May.

The PNP estimates that as of May 2009, there are 1.1 million loose firearms in the country, half of which were classified as having expired or unrenewed licenses.

Some 529,550 unregistered firearms belong to civilians, 15,676 to threat groups such as terrorists and insurgents, and 5,726 firearms to criminal elements.

From 2004 to 2008, 97 percent of all crime incidents involving firearms were committed using loose firearms.

The PNP leadership welcomed the gun amnesty to be implemented for a month.

Chief Superintendent Ireno Bacolod, director of the PNP-Civil Service Group (CSG), said the PNP has been working on the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the gun amnesty.

The PNP had requested President Arroyo to approve a four-month long gun amnesty to be implemented starting this month until November.

Bacolod said the program will actually be for the owners of loose firearms as well as for holders of expired gun licenses.

Owners of loose firearms will have to go to the police station which has jurisdiction over their residence to fill up an application form.

Bacolod said they would only pay P1,000 for each loose firearm at the nearest Land Bank of the Philippines branch.

“After the payment, unlicensed gun holders will submit their accomplished application form to the provincial police headquarters where they will be given their temporary gun license,” he added.

The loose firearms will then be subjected to ballistic examination at the Firearms and Explosives Division at Camp Crame to determine if the gun has been used in the commission of any crime.

For holders of firearms with expired licenses, Bacolod said they would have to secure an application form also at the nearest local police station and pay a fixed amount of P650.

He said the gun holder would be given a temporary license pending the issuance of permanent, laminated gun license.

The gun amnesty program is just one of the strategies of the PNP to account for some 1.1 million loose firearms in the country. Other measures include seeking a stiffer penalty for possession of unlicensed guns and massive crackdown on criminal syndicates, particularly gunrunners.

Of the more than a million loose firearms, police records showed 50 percent of them are unregistered, 40 percent were firearms not renewed while the remaining 10 percent are in the hands of threat groups such as communist rebels, Abu Sayyaf and Moro rebels and even criminal syndicates.

A majority of the unlicensed guns are being used in illegal activities, including election-related violent incidents.

The PNP leadership is seeking to account for at least 33,000 loose and expired firearms every month. - With Cecille Suerte Felipe