Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada has again procured P20 million worth of brand new firearms for members of the Manila Police District to “improve the city police’s firepower against armed criminals.”
With the latest shipment of firearms, Estrada said “there will be no more policemen in the city that have no service firearms of their own.”
“With our new order of brand new firearms, all 4,600 uniformed personnel of our city police force are now armed and equipped, ready to fulfill their duty of protecting the city and upholding the law,” he said.
Last October, the city government bought for the MPD 400 Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistols, 60 M4 carbines (a shorter and lighter variant of the popular M16A2 Armalite assault rifle), eight Sig Sauer sniper rifles, ammunition, and other necessary gear and equipment, also worth P20 million.
MPD director Chief Supt. Joel Coronel said they expect to receive delivery of the new guns this semester, which are mostly Glock 17 pistols and sniper rifles.
Coronel said the Glock 17 is the most widely used law enforcement pistol worldwide, with an above-average magazine capacity of 17 rounds in the standard magazine, low weight, and is “easy and quick to be used in high-pressure situations.”
He said Estrada has given the MPD more than 500 brand new firearms since he assumed office in 2013.
Before the second P20-million order of firearms, Coronel said around 200 MPD policemen still had no service weapons. “With the issuance of these new firearms, this 200, we’ll have a 100 percent fill-up. Hopefully, they will be purchased and delivered within the first semester,” he said.
The city mayor of San Juan for 17 years before being elected in Manila in 2013, Estrada said it has been “his topmost priority” to provide whatever the local police need to effectively fulfill their duties.
He has allotted P1.9 billion for the city’s crime prevention program, which includes P136 million in back allowances of MPD members and the purchase of 41 new mobile patrol cars and 110 electric personnel transporters.
Estrada also earmarked P20 million to renovate the MPD headquarters on United Nations Avenue, its first facelift since it was built in 1949.
A Commission on Audit report said one out of every 10 uniformed personnel of the Philippine National Police “is performing his or her duty of fighting crime unarmed.”
The PNP currently has 147,041 uniformed officers assigned to offices, units or regions, yet only 124,738 of them have handguns, and 16,140 cops still have no government-issued firearms, COA said.