The Philippine National Police (PNP) has started accounting for more than 600,000 firearms with expired licenses as it intensified the campaign against loose firearms ahead of the presidential elections next year.

Firearms with expired licenses are classified as loose guns and based on the PNP data, there are 664,480 firearms with expired licenses as of second quarter of 2021.

PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said all chiefs of police and area commanders to intensify the accounting of all loose firearms in the country.

He said the aggressive campaign against loose firearms will complement his instruction to conduct a crackdown on all the Private Armed Groups, both in preparation to ensure that both the goons and loose guns will not be used as instrument to sow violence in next year’s polls.

“I have already instructed all our chiefs of police and area commanders to intensify the accounting of loose firearms as part of our early preparation for the peaceful, honest and orderly conduct of elections next year,” said Eleazar.

Part of the order, according to Eleazar, is the campaign against gun-running syndicates.

He then urged firearms owners with expired licenses to renew the registration.

Eleazar 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.

He emphasized the need to prepare early for the 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.