PRO-6: No let-up in drive vs loose guns

ILOILO CITY, Philippines  — The Police Regional Office-6 has renewed and strengthened its campaign against loose firearms, which are estimated to be more than 30,000 in number around Western Visayas.

PRO-6 director Chief Supt. Cipriano Querol said that part of the drive would involve a call for gun owners to renew the licenses of their firearms.

Records from the Firearm and Explosives Unit of PRO-6 showed that there are 32,307 firearm licenses not renewed, and 28,978 of these were for individual firearms and the rest for juridical firearms.

Querol surmised that many of the gun owners may not have renewed their firearm licenses probably because they lost the firearms or donated these to other persons. “But there should be a report to support these,” he said.

PRO-6 targeted at least 3 percent of the total expired licenses for renewal every month, said Querol adding that, after the “soft campaign,” the police would launch continuous operations to arrest persons keeping unlicensed guns.

“More often than not, these loose firearms are being used in the perpetration of crimes and other illegal activities. The campaign against these guns is PRO-6’s way of lessening crime incidents,” he said.

All police units in Western Visayas were already ordered to set up random checkpoint operations, apply for search warrants and conduct saturation drives to recover, confiscate and account loose firearms proliferating in the region, said Querol.

Owners of firearms with expired licenses have been reminded also to renew their permits otherwise they could be charged for violating the law, he said.

Last year, 334 cases for violation of gun law were filed against 542 suspects all over the region. A total of 790 loose firearms were also confiscated and recovered. Of this number, 410 were home-made guns, 222 were low-powered and 158 high-powered firearms, police records showed.

The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office topped the accomplishment of confiscating 189 firearms, followed by the Iloilo PPO with 162, Bacolod City Police Office with 144, Aklan PPO with 80, Capiz PPO with 70, Iloilo City Police Office with 61, Antique PPO with 56, and Guimaras PPO, and the 6th Regional Public Safety Battalion and the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Group with 12 each. (FREEMAN)