Author Topic: AFP admits arms pilferage  (Read 885 times)

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AFP admits arms pilferage
« on: August 11, 2010, 01:40:38 AM »
Rogue soldiers sell to rebels, private armies
BY WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL REPORTER

THE Armed Forces of the Philippines has admitted that pilfered military war materiel were being sold by some unscrupulous personnel to enemies of the state and politicians maintaining private armies. The Armed Forces spokesman, Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr., made the admission on Monday in reaction to reports that the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was getting their firearms and ammunition from the Armed Forces.

“In the past, there was pilferage of firearms. This has been investigated and in fact we have prosecuted several personnel in this regard,” Mabanta said.

The guns, he added, were sold not only to the MILF but to criminal elements and other enemies of the state.

When asked if some of the pilfered firearms were also being sold to private armies, Mabanta replied, “That’s also a possibility.”

On the MILF acquiring the pilfered weapons and ammunition, the Armed Forces spokesman said that the military would investigate the matter if there were really a basis.

“The thing is we need data on this [pilferage] so that this will help us in determining really if there is truth to the report or not,” Mabanta added.

The war materiel finding their way to MILF has bolstered belief that stolen government-owned firearms and ammunition from the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police (PNP) also ended up on the hands of private armies of influential politicians, such as the Ampatuans of Maguindanao province in southern Mindanao.

According to the PNP Directorate for Intelligence, there are still 107 private armed groups all over the country, but only 65 of them are active.

It is also believed that some of the firearms and ammunition used in the November 23, 2009 massacre of 57 people, including 30 journalists, in Maguindanao came from the government armory.

Joint raids conducted by the Armed Forces and the national police on known Ampatuans residences and bailiwicks in December 2009 yielded some 900 high-powered firearms and thousands of pieces of ammunition, including a truck loaded with 330,000 bullets for M-16s, the standard firearm of the police and the military.

The pieces of ammunition were marked “Government Arsenal DND” and “Philippine National Police Camp Crame, Quezon City, Philippines.”

DND is the Department of National Defense.

The ammunition boxes were also found to have markings of Amscor, indicating that they came from the government arsenal in Bataan province, north of Manila.

Armscor supplies ammunition not only to the military and the police but also to civilians upon authorization of the government.

The head of the Bureau of Government Arsenal, Director Andres Pepito Bauto, earlier reported that in 2009, 9.4 million rounds of 5.56 ammunition, the standard government-issue bullet for M-16 rifles, have been deposited with the Armed Force’s logistics office or J-4.

The Armed Forces has “operational control” over the ammunition even if it is the Defense department that has administrative powers over the production of the bullets.

The military and the police have conducted separate investigations on how the guns and ammunition landed on the laps of the Ampatuans but they are yet to come up with their respective reports on the matter.

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