THE Philippine National Police (PNP) ordered all its chiefs of police and other area commanders to intensify the accounting of all loose firearms in the country.
PNP Chief Police General Guillermo Eleazar said the aggressive campaign against loose firearms will complement his instruction to wage a crackdown on all the private armed groups in preparation to ensure that both the goons and loose guns will not be used as instruments to sow violence in next year’s national polls.
“Kasama dito ang maigting na operasyon laban sa mga gun-running syndicates at ang mga baril na matagal nang hindi nare-renew dahil maaari itong gamitin na instrumento ng karahasan upang ma-impluwensiyahan ang resulta ng Halalan 2022,” he added.
PGen Eleazar said part of the campaign is for police units to encourage gun owners with expired licenses to renew their firearms’ registration.
Based on PNP data, there are 664,480 firearms owned by private individuals with expired licenses as of the second quarter of 2021.
He said the PNP intelligence community is currently validating the reports on the number of loose firearms, especially those owned by criminal syndicates, communist rebel group and other large threat groups.
PGen Eleazar emphasized the need to prepare early for election security in order to come up with strategies that would deny threat groups the opportunity to influence the elections especially in the provinces.
One of them is the conduct of various election violence that includes assassination of rival candidates and supporters and threatening supporters of certain candidates.
“Lahat tayo ay nagnanais na magkaroon ng tahimik at tapat na halalan sa susunod na taon subalit ito ay isang adhikain na nangangailangan ng kooperasyon ng COMELEC, ng mga pulis at ng sambayanang Pilipino,” said PGen Eleazar.