DANAO, Philippines — In the remote, mist-covered slopes outside the city of Danao in the central Philippines sits the illegal, makeshift workshop of a master gun maker.
Accessible only by foot on a steep, winding pathway camouflaged by thick vegetation, the ramshackle shop owned by I. Launa has a tattered tarpaulin roof, a work table and several machines for cutting and shaping steel. The whole operation can be packed up and moved on short notice.
Illegal gun making is a livelihood that has helped put food on the table and send the family’s children to school since the 1970s, and Mr. Launa, who asked that only the initial of his first name be used for fear of being arrested, is just one of a host of such small-scale gunsmiths in the region. His village alone is home to about a dozen.
The trade — which contributes to the estimated two million unregistered guns in the Philippines, slightly more than the 1.7 million legally registered weapons — is able to flourish in a remote place where jobs are scarce, police presence is thin and lawlessness runs deep.
Gun making “is an essential craft passed on from one generation to another here,” said Mr. Launa, 63, who learned the craft from his father and has now taught it to his son.
“Many presidents have come and gone,” he added, as a single fluorescent light illuminated the table in front of him, where several unfinished Colt .45 pistol replicas lay. “But we are still here.”
Gunsmithing blossomed in the area during World War II, as locals were taught to make weapons to support a guerrilla movement fighting the Japanese. By the 1960s, Danao had become the go-to place for outlaws and ordinary citizens wanting cheap but high-quality replicas.
Once these gun makers would sell their products out in the open, but now they employ runners to surreptitiously deliver their wares. Sometimes, a broker stops by to commission a gun for a client.
In the 1990s, an effort was made to legalize the trade by regulating gun makers, but the project failed to win government support.
The handguns — which even an enthusiast would have a hard time determining are illegal copies, down to the “Colt Automatic Caliber .45 Government Model” engraving — are sold to buyers for around 7,000 pesos, about $130, much cheaper than authentic models.
Other weapons, like submachine guns, can be commissioned, too, although orders for the higher caliber weapons have become slow amid a government crackdown.
