Police Lieutenant Colonel Randy Korret (left), City Mobile Force Company (CMFC) chief, and Police Colonel Engelbert Soriano (right), Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) chief, inspect the confiscated loose firearms in the mountain areas of Cebu City.| CDND Photo / Alven Marie A. Timtim
CEBU CITY, Philippines — “We are preventing future crimes from happening in Cebu City.”
Police Lieutenant Colonel Randy Korret, chief of the City Mobile Force Company (CMFC) of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said this amid their confiscation of 34 other loose firearms on Friday, February 7, 2020 in the mountain barangays of Cebu City particularly in Babag, Buot-taup, Bonbon, Binaliw, Malubog, Toong, Budlaan, Sapangdaku, Pamutan and Pulang bato.
Korret told CDN Digital in a phone interview on Sunday, February 9, 2020 that their constant patrolling and visits in the 40 mountain barangays at least once a week and the weekly coordination with barangay officials were helping prevent crimes in these areas and even Cebu City in general.
He said this had led to barangay residents with loose firearms surrendering them to the CMFC, which he considered a big plus to security in these areas.
“Because each loose firearm surrendered means we are preventing one possible crime that could be committed in the future,” said Korret.
Read more: Cebu City cops seize more loose firearms from mountain barangays
Since August of last year, the CMFC headed by Korret, conducted 36 operations in these mountain barangays, where they confiscated 438 surrendered firearms from residents.
The operations included convincing people with unlicensed guns, who had no criminal records and were not involved in any illegal activities, to surrender these loose guns to authorities.
“Before namin ipasurrender, dapat magconduct muna tayo ng study kung sino yung personality,” said Korret.
(Before we ask them to surrender, we first conduct a study on who these persons are.)
He also said that in their operations they had not encountered any firearm manufacturer.
He said that the guns that the residents surrendered were given to them from their fathers or grandfathers as protection to the family.
Read more: Mobile Force confiscates 41 loose firearms, 2 explosives in simultaneous operations
Meanwhile, Police Colonel Engelbert Soriano, chief of CCPO, said that loose firearms recovery had been also one of their priorities during his leadership as CCPO chief as it had been also the one of the directives of Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, new Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) director.
“We also have to account the loose firearms in the area to avoid ang mga ito na magamit sa mga krimen sa ating area (so it could be avoided that these will be used to commit crimes),” said Soriano.
Korret also said that the confiscated guns were in a holding area in the CMFC and these would eventually be destroyed.
However, he said the order to destroy the guns would only come from Camp Crame and they would not be destroyed until they receive this order from PNP headquarters./dbs