ILOILO CITY — The Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) will start enforcing “Tokhang Kontra Armas-luthang” or TKAL, a campaign against loose firearms, on Monday, July 23.
TKAL is seen to reduce the proliferation of loose firearms in the province, according to IPPO spokesperson Senior Police Officer 2 Gregoria Antonano,
“This will also neutralize the private armed groups and motorcycle riding-in- tandem suspects in preparation also for the 2019 elections,” she said in an interview Saturday.
According to Antonano, the campaign will be implemented in two approaches.
First, she said, is the “soft hand” approach wherein they will do house to house visits and information drive while the second is “iron hand” approach.
“Those with loose firearms will be targeted for police operations through search warrants,” she said.
Antonano recalled that during the first semester of last year, there are 688 crimes recorded in the province, 116 of which involved loose firearms.
But this year, the number went down for the same period with only 368 crimes recorded, 87 of which involved loose firearms.
Further, Antonano said that through the campaign, they will be able account all the firearms in the province that have expired license or those that are not registered, and compel the owners to process the registration of their firearms.
“The campaign is expected to reduce incidents using loose firearms and it will also reduce the fear of the people in Iloilo regarding crimes,” she said.
The campaign against loose firearms is in accordance with Memorandum Circular 2018-03 of the Police Regional Office in Western Visayas.
Antonano said that they were given only one month to implement the campaign. (Cindy Ferrer/PNA)
