Responsible gun ownership

This is in reference to your news article, dated July 11, 2014, entitled: “Gun group wants PNP Chief’s resignation over permit mess.”

We trust that the Philippine National Police will be given the opportunity to air its side over the issue of the alleged centralized gun licensing.

The Comprehensive Law on Firearms and Ammunition of 2013 (RA 10591) is now in effect and the PNP is duty-bound to impose this law to the letter. This particuIar piece of legislation is specifically helpful in our campaign to take away instruments of crime, violence, and oppression in the hands of criminal elements, threat groups, and unauthorized individuals.

We believe that everyone has a stake in this national advocacy of gun control and responsible gun ownership. As the agency mandated by law to regulate gun ownership in the country, all we would like to achieve is “responsible gun ownership” and to keep all gun records in order.

Furthermore, this is not just to standardize the regulation of firearms, but will also help to intensify our campaign in curbing gun-related crimes and establish a truly effective firearms control.

For your information, in a special operation called “Oplan Katok” launched last election period 2013 and which is still being undertaken to date, we found out that there are about 120,000 irregularities or fictitious gun holders throughout the country. “Oplan Katok” is a house-to-house survey and inspection of gun license holders to determine if indeed said gun holder is real by verifying the person in the firearms license and his or her registered residence. Under this plan, we have found out that more than 120,000 gun licenses are in the names of fictitious owners and about 98,000 of these are in the provinces. Surely, 120,000 fictitious gun owners should be cause for alarm to the PNP, the State itself and especiallv the media.

 To arrest the problem from getting worse, the PNP decided to temporarily suspend registration of firearms in the provinces, until the computerization of licenses has been completed and made implementable. In this computerization process and system, we are minimizing if not totally eradicating human intervention. It behooves us therefore, to initially limit firearm licensing in the PNP main headquarters, temporarily in Manila till we can unfold the new computer-based licensing in the provinces. Clearly, the so-called centralization of gun licensing in Manila is a misnomer. There was and there is no deliberate plan to centralize. It was merely a result of the temporary suspension of firearm registration in the provinces, and for good reason.

As to the allegation of your article’s resource person that due to the voluminous requirements set by the PNP to acquire or renew licenses, and in effect there is a de facto gun ban, may we inform you that all requirements are basic and accessible — from birth certificate to clearances from the NBI, the Regional Trial Courts, and the Metropolitan Trial Courts and other requirements. I am certain that you will also agree with the need for drug tests and neuro-psychiatric tests for our gun holders which, in fact, can now be undertaken in the different regional offices of the PNP Crime Laboratory and Health Service, respectively. The other information needed are basically aimed to establish a pure and comprehensive database such that renewing licenses in the future can then be done on-line through the internet alone with minimal human intervention, thus less prone to corruption.

Your good resource person perhaps finds the process of getting necessary documents tedious for him personally. May we assure him and you that hundreds of applicants successfully go through the process everyday here at Camp Crame. If they can do it, surely he can too. Finally, just because your resource person finds it hard to comply with the requirements for licensing it doesn’t mean that there is a “permit mess” in our License offices as the title of the article maliciously insinuates.

We are looking forward that Philippine STAR will help and support us in achieving our goal to of giving “Serbisyong Makatotohanan” to our countrymen.

Thank you very much and rest assured of our continuing support in our mutual effort of providing better public service. — Reuben Theodore Caseñas Sindac, Police Chief Superintendent, Philippine National Police