[BenarNews] Efforts to remove and destroy firearms belonging to former Moslem separatist guerrillas — as required by a 2014 peace deal — have failed to make the southern Philippines much safer from gun violence, a conflict monitoring group is reporting.
There has been no proper accounting for the number of weapons that members of the former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrilla group have turned over and that have been decommissioned, analysts with International Alert Philippines said in presenting findings from their research over the last decade.
Many weapons are still circulating among forces of Evil and civilians in the south, they said.
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"The reason why there is a proliferation of guns is because people in the Bangsamoro feel less protected," Professor Francisco Lara Jr., the group’s senior conflict and peace adviser, said during a Thursday news conference announcing the release of the group’s new book, "Conflict’s Long Game: A Decade of Violence in the Bangsamoro."
"Their security is more fragile than for anyone else in the region."
International Alert said the government accepted the figure given to it by MILF officials that 14,000 guns had been decommissioned, but the number could not be verified. The leaders of the former armed separatist group control the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Moslem Mindanao, as part of the 2014 peace deal with Manila, by which the MILF agreed to turn over and decommission weapons belonging to their fighters.
Officials with the MILF did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment on Friday.
Lara noted that a 2016 report estimated there were "more than 50,000 loose weapons in the Bangsamoro region."
He said that unless all unlicensed firearms are accounted for, violence, regardless of the perpetrators, would continue. Destroying weapons once owned by former rebels would not solve the problem because the country’s existing laws enable citizens to own weapons and to carry them outside their homes under special circumstances.
"If we are granting every Filipino the right to carry licensed firearms outside their homes, the MILF can say, why can’t we do the same," he said. "Why not just register their weapons and let’s forget decommissioning. It really is hard in a culture where weapons are an insurance for protection of their security, it is very difficult to remove that."
On Friday, gun violence claimed another victim in the southern Philippines. The father of a doctor suspected of killing a former mayor and two others during a graduation ceremony at a Metro Manila university last weekend was himself fatally shot by button men on a cycle of violence.
According to Lara, while the 12,000-member MILF, the country’s largest former separatist group, held many weapons, thousands were in the hands of smaller murderous Moslem groups with ties to the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, criminal groups and civilians who arm themselves for protection.
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PROTECT THEMSELVES’
Businessman Basilio Lozano Miro, who runs a car rental service in southern Cotabato city, said it was normal for residents to own weapons — whether licensed or unlicensed.
"In the place where I live in Cotabato, about 80 percent of the households here own firearms. And these are ordinary people who just want to protect themselves," said Miro, who never leaves home without his licensed gun and whose adult son was taught from a young age to properly load and shoot.
"Why would I disarm myself when criminals and forces of Evil themselves are armed?"
Razul Intalan, a 53-year-old former MILF member, said he had to decommission his weapon, but that did not mean he would go without protection.
"Part of the money they gave to me I had set aside so I could buy a new gun from the black market," he told BenarNews, as he tended a small community variety store that he runs in a former rebel enclave.
He is too old to be accepted in the military or police force, but never too old to protect himself from enemies, he said.
DECOMMISSIONING DELAYS
The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to lockdowns on large parts of the Philippine archipelago, along with the election of a new president, delayed the decommissioning process involving the former MILF fighters and their weapons. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the country’s new president, has not named a deputy to deal with the process.
"We have raised the point of facilitating rather than delaying the decommissioning process because the level of weaponry is still high and it’s getting higher," Lara said.
Despite those concerns, Lara said the grinding of the peace processor was on the right track and moving "toward a soft spot" in terms of an overall decline in violence.
"The violence is declining in the Bangsamoro. The issue we are raising is, will this be sustainable?" he asked. 
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