BULUAN, MAGUINDANAO?Speaking in a town-hall style meeting here yesterday, administration presidential candidate Gilberto ?Gibo? Teodoro said tracing the route of the firearms seized from the Ampatuan clan could be very simple.

?You don?t need an extensive probe to do it,? said Teodoro, defense secretary before he entered the presidential race in the May election.

?Every delivery has a route. Those recovered ammunition have lot numbers. By simply looking at the bullet casing, we can easily trace the last supply officer who handled those bullets,? he said.

Teodoro said all government purchases for the Armed Forces were coursed through the logistics division.

He urged the military officials?whom he addressed as his ?former colleagues??to make public their report of the investigation as to why government-issued weapons ended up in private armies, especially in the south.

Militias a fact of life

Told in an open forum that the rise of private armies apparently went unabated during his tenure as defense chief, Teodoro said: ?There was no election fever yet (at the time). There was no indication of a looming problem.?

On the government?s use of paramilitary forces against insurgents, the Lakas-Kampi-CMD standard-bearer said: ?It?s a fact of life. The government is afraid we might spend more to pay for the retirement benefits of regular soldiers than for the military?s operations.?

In Cotabato City, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno on Monday said ?a second wave of charges? should be directed at individuals and institutions who helped the Ampatuans amass massive quantities of arms and ammunitions.

Many of the ammunitions boxes bore the mark ?Government Arsenal DND.?

Clues on weapons

The firearms also have serial numbers while the others show traces of having been defaced.

Puno said markings on the weapons should be reestablished so that their origin could be traced and the individuals who had a hand in the transfer be held liable.

Pilferage, gunrunning

He hinted there could be possible pilferage of government property or gunrunning involved.

Commercial dealers for the weapons should also be investigated, Puno said.

Puno was in Cotabato City to preside over the assumption into office of Ansaruddin Alonto as acting governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.