PNP: Almost 1,000 election gun ban violators arrested so far
Police have arrested almost 1,000 people, including soldiers and policemen, amid the continuous gun ban implementation across the country for the May 12 midterm elections, an official disclosed on Monday, Feb. 17.
Police Col. Randulf Tuaño, chief information officer of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said the gun ban implementation that started on Jan. 12 also resulted in the confiscation of a total of 962 firearms.
“We are on the 37th day of the implementation of the Comelec gun ban and the total number of persons arrested is 971 and we also confiscated 962 firearms,” said Tuaño.
Of the 971 gun ban violators arrested, Tuaño said 290 of them were from Metro Manila, 149 from Central Luzon and 82 from Calabarzon.
He said most of the violators are civilians while 22 security guards, eight soldiers and five policemen were also apprehended.
Citing the result of the verification with the Civil Security Group (CSG), Tuaño said only three of the arrested security guards while 10 have no gun licenses and six have expired licenses.
He said the CSG is now conducting an investigation if the security agencies that employed the arrested security guards could also be held liable.
The PNP earlier advised security agencies to remind their security guards about the rules and regulations of the existing gun ban.