PHILIPPINES: Philippines' gun-making town of Danao thrives producing weapons for police and even foreign mafia

Record ID: 376473

  • Title: PHILIPPINES: Philippines' gun-making town of Danao thrives producing weapons for police and even foreign mafia
  • Date: 17th December 2006
  • Summary: VARIOUS EXTERIOR OF DANAO CITY HALL
  • Embargoed: 1st January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Philippines
  • Country: Philippines
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA2H49M572WFGGQ6C7P9A7YD31X
  • Story Text: Artemio Miro is a former Philippine air force sergeant. Since his retirement 9 years ago, his new job has been to test-fire locally produced guns, and oversee the operation of this town's gun factory.
    The city of Danao, known as the country's gun-making capital, lies less than an hour's drive away from Cebu, where Asian leaders are expected to gather early next year for a postponed ASEAN conference.
    An estimated 2,000 gun manufacturers in this town - a majority of them without licenses - are churning out inexpensive firearms that eventually end up in the hands of a variety of users ranging from Philippine police officers to foreign mafia.
    In an effort to reduce the illegal production of firearms, the city has been urging individual gun manufacturers to obtain a license and join the city's certified gun-making cooperative. The cooperative's factory produces .38-calibre revolvers, whose wholesale price is 3,000 pesos (or 60 US dollars), and retail price 6,000 pesos (or 120 US dollars).
    "Very cheap. Because you know it's very cheap. Not like other guns with a very high price," said Artemio Miro, vice chairman of the cooperative.
    Still, more than 80 percent of the city's gun manufactures continue making guns illegally in their backyards.
    Their gun-making tradition dates back to the Spanish colonial era when the Spaniards brought firearms to the Philippines. But it was after World War II that locals in this town started full fledged production of firearms, passing on the skills from generation to generation.
    "People are making guns here because in this area there are no jobs for them. That is all. They know it. Because this place has no factories," said Precy Sabas, a 53-year-old Danao resident.
    City officials say those making illegal firearms would be arrested if caught in action, but admit that the city's reluctant to take any radical action against them given that up to 20 percent of its population is believed to be involved in the illegal gun production.
    "We are trying to tell them to join the cooperatives so that they would have no problem with justice, the police and everything,'" said Jojo Roble, secretary to the Danao city mayor.
    The Philippines' love affair with weapons -- public buildings regularly carry signs asking visitors to leave their guns at the door -- has earned the country the nickname, "The Wild West of Asia".
    With around 1.1 million guns in circulation in the Philippines and nearly 30 percent of them unlicensed, Danao's customer base ranges from drug lords and gambling tsars to shopkeepers and housewives wanting to protect their families.
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