The Senate is set to deliberate on the proposed Gun Control Act 2009, pending since middle this year, to ensure stricter penalties for gun smugglers and violators, Senate majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said Monday.

Zubiri said he is awaiting for the committee report from the Committee of Public Order and Illegal Drugs led by Sen. Gregorio Honasan to calendar the plenary debates for Senate Bill 3375.

Congress resumes today after a break to pave way for the filing of certificates of candidacies by national and local candidates.

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV filed the proposed Gun Control Act of 2009 on August this year.

The measure aims to amend provisions of Presidential Decree 1866 and impose higher penalties for gun-related violations. The call for lawmakers to act on the proposed law came as the PNP amnesty program for loose firearms ended yesterday.

In his explanatory note to Senate Bill 3375, Trillanes cited the statistics provided by Philippine National Police chief Director General Jesus Verzosa in the recent National Summit on Firearms Control that showed that the Philippines ranked 10th in the number of gun homicide rates worldwide.

The PNP chief referred to the 2005 Report of the World Health Organization and the LJN Office of Drugs and Crime. The PNP revealed that the current estimate of loose firearms in the country is now at 1,110,372.

The PNP report showed that of the 5,752 crime incidents recorded in 2008, 6,030 involved firearms, 5,999 of which were loose firearms and only 31 licensed.

In addition, the most common crimes committed with loose firearms from 2006 to 2008 consistently included murder, homicide, physical injury and robbery.

“Admittedly, firearms in the hands of irresponsible citizens is tantamount to increased perception of insecurity, loss of human lives, damage to property and destruction of valuable resources in the country,” Trillanes said in his explanatory note.

The senator, detained at Camp Crame on rebellion charges, lamented that the bill remains pending before the Senate. Police statistics showed that there are about 3.8-million firearms in circulation in the country.

The international think tank Small Arms Survey’s (2007) placed the average total number of guns in circulation in the country at 3.9 million (high of 5 million and low of 2.8 million).

The police statistics cited in the proposed Gun Control Act of 2009 also revealed that the data gap in the actual number of guns-in-circulation contributes to the difficulty of accurately pointing the finger to the problem, and also in the difficulty in making a systematic assessment of trends in arms proliferation.