Taiwanese traveler charged for illegal gun possession

THE Taiwanese national caught with guns in his luggage about to check in for a flight at the Mactan Cebu Airport was charged  in court  yesterday.

Chao Ching Hung, 35, will face trial for illegal possession of firearms, a violation of Republic Act 10591. No bail was recommended.

Taiwanese national Chao Ching Hung has had no visitor in the detention cell of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Station where he spent the night. He faces trial for illegal possession of firearms. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

Hung, who said he couldn’t  speak English, is detained at the  Lapu-Lapu City Police Headquarters detention cell.

He has had no visitors since his arrest Thursday afternoon at the airport.

Hung appeared for   inquest proceedings conducted by Lapu-Lapu City Assistant Prosecutor Dinah Jane Portugal yesterday.

A preliminary investigation will be conducted as soon as Hung gets himself a lawyer or is provided one, Portugal said.

Senior Supt. Joselito Salido, chief of the PNP Aviation Security Unit 7, said he hoped Hung would get assistance from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Manila.

Taiwan, or the Republic of China, does not have an embassy or a consulate here because of the Philippines’ One-China policy, which recognizes only the People’s Republic of China as a state.

Hung was arrested Thursday afternoon at the  airport where he was trying to catch a flight to Taiwan via Manila.

At the X-ray screening area, his suitcase  was inspected and yielded a KG 9 submachine gun with silencer, three magazines, a 9-mm Beretta pistol and 100 rounds of live 9-mm ammunition wrapped in a lead blanket.

He was booked on a Cebu Pacific flight to Manila and a connecting flight to Taipei. He missed both flights.

Salido said offhand that the foreigner may have  bought the submachine gun from Danao City, where gunsmiths are known to illegally make copies of branded guns at steep discounts.

This could not be confirmed, though, because police could not get any information from Hung, Salido said.

Hung merely said, “No English,” upon his arrest.

The Berreta pistol, however, appeared genuine.

Earlier this year, airport police also arrested er a Taiwanese national who tried to leave Cebu with three short firearms concealed in a miniature metal airplane.

He remains detained in the  Lapu-Lapu City Jail, awaiting the resolution of his case.

Police Supt. Fermin Armendarez III, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), said the gunsmiths in Danao City are capable of making high-powered firearms.

“They claim it’s their source of living,” Armendarez said.

Illegal gun making is a major source of income for thousands of men in Danao.

The gunsmiths were previously organized into a cooperative to legalize the industry, but the venture ended in a police raid after the cooperative failed to account for some firearms.

Attempts to organize another cooperative are being made.

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