A number of military officers Sunday called for the creation of an independent and credible auditing team that will look into the extent of corruption in the military and identify more officers who might be involved.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a middle-ranking officer said tapping an auditing team would clear public doubts that government is trying to cover up graft and corrupt practices of top military officials.

"It's a welcome move and only those hiding something will not agree. That is a welcome move if the government wants to quell these controversies, that is if the government wants to do that," the source said.

He said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should exercise political will to the problem besetting the military, similar to what she did when she created the Feliciano commission that lookedinto last year's Oakwood mutiny.

"That (creating an independent auditing team) requires a political will.

There are already precedents. Remember the Oakwoodmutiny? It could be patterned after it," the officer said.

A junior officer said he thinks that should be one of the concentrations (creation of auditing team). "It's better if we would replace the internal auditors of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, because they could be tolerating corruption," he said.

A member of the Feliciano commission, retired Commodore Rex Robles, earlier said that military officials are "conniving with auditors to hide their anomalies, including conversion or ghost deliveries".

Another officer agreed with the suggestion to form an audit team but said team will have difficulty unearthing corruption in the papers.

"An audit would be hard because the paper trails are proper. All the papers are there, are proper," he said, citing the ghost deliveries in the military.

"It's hard to uncover the utilization of the cash," he added.

Asked what he could suggest to improve the corrupt financial and logistics systems of the military, the source said: "We have to overhaul the entire system, the whole financial system if we want to address this."

The Philippine military is under strong pressure after an government ombudsman last week ordered the suspension of Maj. Gen.Carlos Garcia, a former military comptroller, for his alleged accumulation unexplained wealth and failure to include in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities his properties in the United States.

Last December, the US customs agents held a son of Garcia, 26-year-old Ian Carl, for not declaring 100,000 US dollars he possessed when entering the United States.

Garcia's wife said they have non-taxable incomes and that her husband receives gratitude money from contractors.

"The troops in the field are suffering all the hardships but look at the reports of how much this general (Garcia) has amassed.If there's going to be no audit, how can one check (the extent ofcorruption). What we need is transparency," he said.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel has warned the corruption in the military might rekindle destabilization efforts against the government, especially if the perpetrators of these erring activities are not punished.

Army information chief Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero initially refusedto comment on Pimentel's warning.

"Not all questions should be answered. There are times when themarketplace of ideas has to be suspended to avoid the creation of another problem," Lucero said, when asked what he could say to Pimentel's statement.

Lucero later said that the armed forces will see to it that destabilization efforts will not happen.

Source: Xinhua