PNP seizes 5,000 loose firearms in 10 months

Manila—Police units nationwide seized close to 5,000 loose firearms during the past 10 months, Philippine National Police Director General Nicanor Bartolome said yesterday.

The figure, however, is less than one percent of the total number of illegal firearms in the country.

According to Bartolome, the intensified police operations against unlicensed guns was part of the PNP’s security preparations for the May 2013 midterm elections.

“By taking away these instruments of violence, we are effectively immobilizing the activities of some threat groups, criminal elements and partisan armed groups that may affect” the elections,” the PNP chief said in a statement.

Bartolome said he had directed all PNP offices to launch more operations to recover loose guns which, according to the PNP’s Firearms and Explosives Office, number over 600,000. Citing a report from the PNP Directorate for Operations, Bartolome said a total of 4,976 illegal firearms were confiscated in police operations conducted from January to October this year.

He said 4,911 of the seized guns were from criminal groups while 158 were recovered from “threat groups.”

During the same period, he said, police arrested 2,847 individuals who were keeping illegal firearms.

Bartolome said the number of seized firearms this year was 69 percent higher than what the police confiscated in 2011.

“The confiscation of these loose firearms resulted from 1,914 Oplan Bakal/Oplan Sita operations, 80 internal security operations, 330 search warrant operations and 476 checkpoint operations,” he said.

Last month, the PNP disclosed that gun owners, including juridical entities such as government agencies and private companies, failed to renew licenses for a total of 610,156 firearms as of August this year.

Chief Insp. Nelson Bautista of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office’s Inspection and Enforcement Section said since the permits for the guns had already expired, they were now considered “loose firearms.” /INQUIRER