CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna – The national police will start a gun amnesty program this month until October to try to reduce the number of unlicensed firearms in the streets, which was estimated to be at least a million guns, a police official said.

Chief Superintendent Perfecto Palad, Calabarzon police regional director, said in a statement Monday that the gun amnesty program was part of security preparations for the 2010 elections and would seek to “lessen gun-related [crime] incidents in the country.”

Police, as of May, estimated that at least a million unlicensed guns are out in the streets. Half of them, police said, are in the hands of crime groups and individuals while the other half are weapons with expired licenses.

Police, Palad said, would visit gun holders to help renew their gun licenses or collect unlicensed weapons for turnover to the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Division.

The campaign comes amid reports of raids on illegal gun factories and keepers of unlicensed weapons.

In a recent operation, the National Bureau of Investigation and Lucena City police raided the house of two fishing magnates in Lucena and seized a total of 11 guns and ammunition.

Superintendent Genaro Ylagan, Lucena police chief, said authorities arrested father and son Antonio and Manuel Sio, both Chinese and residents of Purok Ibaba in the coastal village of Dalahican.

The two were charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

The raiding teams were armed with a search warrant from Judge Honorio F. Guanlao Jr. of San Pablo City’s regional trial court.

The raid yielded a 9-millimeter pistol, magazines, five shotguns, 12 rounds of 9 mm bullets, an Armalite rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition for Armalite, a .45 cal. pistol and two other pistols of unfamiliar make. Maricar Cinco and Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon