Army to decommission 73 CCSR firearms

By Jennifer P. Rendon

The Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division will be putting 73 guns beyond use following a ceremonial demilitarization and inspection of captured, confiscated, surrendered, and recovered (CCSR) firearms.

The 6th Forward Service Support Unit (FSSU) hosted the activity held at its headquarters at Camp Delgado, Iloilo City Monday morning.

Major General Benedict Arevalo, 3rd ID commander; and Brigadier General Rogelio Ulanday, Army Support Command (ASCOM) deputy commander, led the symbolic demilitarization of seven firearms.

Arevalo said the remaining 66 firearms will be up for inspection. After that, the guns will go through verification process before decommissioning.

When a firearm is demilitarized, it is destroyed for it to be rendered useless and prevent them from ending in enemy hands.

“What we did was symbolic to show na hindi dapat hinahawakan ng mga tao na wala sa gobyerno. Ang dapat na may armas lang ang nagpo-protekta sa sambayanang Pilipino ay pwersa ng gobyerno – AFP, PNP, and other uniformed service personnel,” he said.

The guns that were demilitarized on Monday were seized back in 2018 and those due for inspection were those mostly recovered from last year.

Of the 73 firearms, 13 are deemed serviceable while 60 are unserviceable.

Serviceable firearms refer to the condition in which a firearm can still be used for its purpose while unserviceable firearms are those which are beyond economic repair and can no longer be used for its purpose.

Thirty-eight firearms are CCSR efforts by the 12th Infantry Battalion; 17 from the 62nd I-B; 9 from the 301st Infantry Brigade; 4 from Military Intelligence Battalion; 3 from the 61st IB; and one each from the 79th IB and 16SRC.

Forty-five firearms, or 61.6 percent were surrendered while 28 were captured.