TALL order, comments Police Provincial Director Edgardo Ingking on the mandate to account for about 60 loose firearms in Bohol every month. But PSSUpt. Ingking believed that starting with the last known addresses of delinquent license holders who fail to renew their licenses in time for the final amnesty this October, the figure may not be impossible to reach. He added that Camp Dagohoy has a list of the 2,567 gun holders with expired licenses, guns which are now technically defined as loose fire-arms. Loose firearms, Ingking explains, are those in the keeping of threat groups, criminal elements and delinquent license holders. During a press conference on the National Firearms Control Program (NFACP) held at the Philippine Information Agency Tuesday, the top cop in Bohol also revealed that the local police would also go after the at least 1665 in their aggressive drive to run over the illegal possessors.

For those intending to go by the book and avail of the gun registration and licensing amnesty, they revealed that the local police authorities have started processing application since August 1 to 31 to beat the October 1-31 deadline. At an earlier talk, Ingking cited Philippine National Police statistics detailing that about 97.8% of gun related crimes in the country involve the use of loose firearms. By accounting the loose firearms and keeping their records upon registration, police authorities can identify by ballistics examination any slug belonging to which firearms used in any crime.

The government move also becomes timely with the coming elections would be approaching the problem of accounting loose firearms in two ways. He said aside from aggressive interdiction operations through checkpoints and choke points, the police would also lobby for their legislative agenda amending RA 8294 and put up stiffer penalties for illegal gun possession especially in organized crime groups. He believed that the NFACP would finally solve the problem of loose firearms which often end up being used in crimes. He said the NFACP mandate is in line with Executive order 189 which President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo enacted and consequently churned local police organization into high gear to account for an estimated 4,232 loose firearms in Bohol alone. (PIA)