Pres. Duterte can’t hide his admiration over Chinese sniper rifles: ‘Ang Gaganda’

President Rodrigo Duterte did not hide his admiration over the 7.62mm sniper rifles donated by China to help his government win the war in Marawi City.

“Yung mga sniper na dumating, ang gaganda. And I told (Defense Secretary Delfin) Lorenzana na paghatian ninyo na lalo na ‘yung sniper. Very beautiful. You’ll get it in a matter of days,” said Duterte in a speech in Davao City Thursday. Duterte is expecting anohter batch of sniper rifles from China in September.

Duterte ordered Special Assistant to the President Bong Go to rush the ballistic examinations of the sniper rifles because couldn’t wait to deploy these as soon as possible to his men on the field in Marawi.

“I hope that you can assemble about one battalion of snipers para — mahusay kung marami tayong snipers. They are also sniping at us and they have the beautiful guns, they have the Barretts,” said Duterte referring to the US Military issued Barret M107semi-automatic sniper rifle used by Maute snipers in Marawi City.

“Well, it’s a deadly firearm, it can reach you almost one kilometer away. But may panlaban naman tayo. Marami man rin tayong Barrett. And with additional arms, I think we will find it easy really to operate,” said Duterte.

After the Marawi war, Duterte is planning to investigate how these Barrettes issued by the Department of National Defense found their way into the hands of the enemy. He said one of the reasons why the Marawi war has lasted this long was because of the well-positioned snipers of Maute.

“Taas kasi sila eh. So tayo, uphill. Nakaposisyon na ‘yung snipers nila, ‘yung mga Barrett. So practically we ha — we were in open country. So, every building was occupied with one or two… So, naparami ‘yung casualties natin,” said Duterte.