The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Wednesday said 83 gun ban violators were arrested as part of security preparations for the 2019 mid-term elections, its spokesman said.

In a press briefing in Camp Crame, Chief Superintendent Benigno Durana Jr. said; “So far we have arrested 83 gun ban violators and let us emphasize these are not only violations of the Comelec gun ban. Some of them are violating the revised penal code because some of these firearms recovered, confiscated are loose firearms."

He said they still need to find out how many of the arrested were civilians, uniformed and non-uniformed personnel.

As of January 16, five persons were killed after evading checkpoints and shooting at police officers.

"I think we need to emphasize these are obviously crime suspects because the circumstances of their deaths were due to police operations. They evaded checkpoint operations and decided to shoot it out with our law enforcers rather than peaceably yield to the rule of law and judicial processes of the land," Durana said.

"These are criminals so we put out permanently potential criminals who may be committing a crime or may be contributing to violence in our midst," he added.

Durana also said the PNP conducted a total of 9,600 checkpoints for the first three days and they have 565 joint checkpoints with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

He said aside from checkpoints, they are conducting other police operations such as service of search warrants, arrest warrants, other police patrols and response.

"The desire of the chief PNP (Oscar Albayalde) is to level the playing field so the real will of the people will be realized and achieved come midterm elections," he said.

On the part of National Capital Region Police Office, a total of 30 people were arrested in Metro Manila.

Of the 30 arrested, nine were during checkpoints and 21 were during police patrol and response.

NCRPO Director Guillermo Eleazar said out of the 574 installed checkpoints they were able to seize 196 deadly weapons, mainly ammo and eight firearms.

The NCRPO also enforced six warrants of arrest and 21 police patrol and response. Ella Dionisio/DMS