Gun owners told: Get, renew licenses
LOCAL authorities urged gun owners to secure License to Own and Operate Firearms (LTOPF) as well as to renew their firearms whose license have expired before a search warrant will eventually be served against them since these weapon are already considered loose firearms.
Police Superintendent Cydric Earl Tamayo, chief of the Regional Civil Security Group told reporters yesterday that they have already step up effort to reach out to the public who may own a gun through their Serbisyo Caravan, Oplan Katok, implementation of Provisional LTOPF, and online application.
“Time will come na there will be an order to apply a search warrant for these people who refuse to renew their firearms for how many years. They can’t blame the police because we already exerted our effort,” he said.
As to their data per Provincial Police Office (PPO) they have a total of 11,011 of unrenewed firearms. Of this figure, Davao del Norte has 4,163; 2,428 in Compostela Valley; 1,351 in Davao Oriental; and 3,069 in Davao del Sur including Davao City.
Tamayo said among the factors why there are many unrenewed firearms is that during their Oplan Katok, where they target those gun holders in their respective houses, some of these owners had died, changed their address, or gave a fictitious address when they applied.
He added that Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald Bato dela Rosa noticed that the rise of the number of unregistered firearms is because of the 11 requirements that needs to be submitted. Thus, they launched the PLTOPF which started last August 15 until November 30 to give chance for the gun holders to get the license and to streamline the application process.
With this, instead of submitting all the requirements, they will only submit proof of billing and any government issued IDs. As to their data, there were already over 300 who availed the program and were registered.
Under the Republic Act No. 10591, gun owners are required to renew licenses to possess firearms every two years while firearm registration needs to be updated every four years.
He further explained that the purpose of the registration of the firearms is to determine who owns the gun when there are incident involving firearms. The crime lab will be submitting report with the shell recovered and then inquire in the firearms record verification.
Should the firearms is licensed, they could determine the owner but if it is unregistered it would be hard to know who exactly owns the gun used in a certain crime.
With the imposition of Martial Law, civilians are not allowed to bring their firearms outside their homes or they will be arrested as permit to carry these is suspended until December 31. JCR