BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Authorities have lifted the gun ban imposed in the province late last year following a breakdown in peace and order.
Chief Superintendent Francisco Villaroman, Cagayan Valley police director, said Philippine National Police chief Director General Raul Bacalzo approved the lifting of the gun ban, eventually restoring permits to carry duly licensed firearms in the province.
Villaroman said the move was in response to the resolution of the provincial board as well as the appeal from legitimate gun owners for the ban’s lifting.
“However, we still continue to sustain our operations against private armed groups while at the same time intensifying our efforts to prevent the resurgence of politically motivated killings and other forms of serious crimes,” he said.
The firearms ban took effect on Nov. 19 last year or two days after the failed slay try on Tuguegarao City Mayor Delfin Ting. Killings believed to be politically motivated have hounded the province in recent years.
The lifting of the gun ban, however, comes on the heels of recent killings of local political figures, including losing mayoral bet and former councilor Lyndon Obispo of Peñablanca town.
Obispo, 43, Peñablanca’s Liberal Party (LP) chairman, was shot dead in broad daylight in Tuguegarao City last May 15.
Former congressman Manuel Mamba, Cagayan’s LP chairman, said Obispo was the 15th party member slain since last year’s elections.
Less than a week before Obispo’s killing, Marvellon Baltazar, 36, councilman of Solana town’s Carilucud village, was gunned down.
Last May 20, another councilman, Froilan Rivera, of Abulug town’s Barangay Pinili, was also felled by an assassin’s bullet in front of his house.