AK-47 rifles. STOCK PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—An official of the Philippine Army on Tuesday said that “majority” of the high-powered rifles recovered from the New People’s Army were defaced of their serial numbers.
Captain Alberto Caber, Eastern Mindanao Command Public Affairs Chief, said that most of the recovered firearms from the NPA in the Caraga region were tampered and that five of them were from the 1,000 that the Philippine National Police purportedly sold to the communist rebels.
He said that with the tampering of the serial numbers, the rebels intended to mislead the authorities of the firearms’ origin.
“The user intends to mislead authorities on the source of the AK-47 rifles,” Caber said.
Caber, however, could not give the ballpark figure on the number of the tampered rifles, though he was sure that it was more than half of the recovered firearms.
“There are confirmed reports that the five were from the 1,000 rifles sold to the NPA,” Caber said.
He added that the serial numbers are usually found on the body of the rifle, though the Armed Forces of the Philippines are issued with M16 and M14 rifles, not AK-47’s.
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