A retired police colonel has accused Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Hernando Iriberri of smuggling 5,500 rounds of Howitzer ammunition.
In a complaint filed before the Ombudsman on Friday, retired Col. Romulo Maningding said Iriberri, Brig. Gen. Job Yucoco and Chief Supt. Elmo Francis Sarona (acting head of the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Office or PNP FEO) of giving undue benefit to two firearm dealers who imported without due authority the ammunition from a Turkish company.
Maningding belonged to the Philippine Military Class of 1978. Iriberri, who was appointed as AFP chief in July, is a member of class 1983.
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Maningding said his company Roferma Enteprises was initially authorized by the Turkish supplier Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corp. (MKEK) as the dealer to import the ammunition. Roferma won the public bidding in the military’s procurement.
The Turkish firearms supplier later cut communications with Maningding who later found out another company System Nomics was chosen as its local agent, with another company, Caballo Negro Industriya Corp., assisting it.
Maningding alleged that the two companies did not have authority to import, because the license previously held by his company was not transferable.
Maningding wrote to Iriberri and Sarona to cancel the authority to import previously under his name. Sarona supposedly issued a memorandum to cancel the license to operate or deal as indentor.
But Yucoco, AFP deputy chief of staff for logistics, requested the PNP to reissue the license for the two firearm dealers, Maningding said. Yucoco was allegedly acting under Iriberri’s orders.
Mangingding said the two companies should not use the license to import because they would still have to undergo the public bidding.
Maningding later found out that the ammunition were imported in the Port of Manila in Oct. 28, and that Eduard del Mundo, president of the dealer Caballo, wrote to Yucoco asking for help to release the smuggled ammunition from the Bureau of Customs.
On the same day, Yucoco, upon Iriberri’s authority, allegedly ordered the processing of the taxes and duties of the ammunition, as well as the transfer of these to the military headquarters.
Acting as PNP FEO head, Sarona on Oct. 29 ordered the transfer to Philippine Navy’s Sangley Point of the 1,000 rounds of ammunition. The permit had a validity date from Nov. 2 to 6. The ammunition were allegedly smuggled in the Subic port on Nov. 4.
Sarona on Oct. 29 again signed an order to transfer 4,500 rounds of ammunition from the Subic port to Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac City. The permit was valid from Nov. 2 to 6.
According to the complainant, the transfer is anomalous because neither Sangley Point nor Camp Aquino is the official address of the PNP FEO where the ammunition should have been delivered.
Maningding said without an authority to import, there was no way of saying the delivered ammunition was of the same quality and specifications required in the bidding.
“Without an authority to import issued … there is no evidence to support that what was delivered/imported met the specifications of the ammunition with the M73 Fuze ordered and bidded by the AFP as procuring entity,” Maningding said.
“There is also a high probability that the ammunition imported and brought into the country is different in that its M73 Fuze was not manufactured and tested in the US. It is highly probable that the ammunition imported is of low quality thereby not only putting the lives of Filipino soldiers in jeopardy in the field of battle, but also defrauding the Philippine government,” he added.
Maningding said he wrote to PNP Chief Director General Ricardo Marquez on Nov. 5 about the smuggling of the ammunition by the PNP FEO. There was no response yet, he said.
Maningding said the firearm dealers System Nomics and Caballo imported the ammunition without authority, and failed to participate in a public bidding, in violation of the Government Procurement Reform Act.
Besides the military and police officials, Maningding also sought out the charges against System Nomics president Alan Mendoza, Caballo’s Del Mundo, and MKEK officers export manager Gulderen Baglacer and director of marketing Hasan Sahan, among others.
Besides arms smuggling, a special crime under Republic Act No. 10591 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, the complainant also alleged that the respondents should be charged with graft for giving undue benefit to the two dealers, as well as fraud and estafa punishable under the Revised Penal Code.
Arms smuggling in the law is defined as the “import, export, acquisition, sale, delivery, movement or transfer of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, from or across the territory of one country to that of another country which has not been authorized in accordance with domestic law in either or both country/countries.”
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