Phl, US to scale up military drills next year

After the downgrading of military-to-military training between the Philippines and the United States for almost two years, both states have agreed to increase bilateral engagements next year to include territorial defense exercises, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Eduardo Año said yesterday.

Año bared this on the sidelines of the turnover ceremony of 3,000 Chinese-made assault rifles to the Philippine government by China, through Beijing’s Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, held at the canopy of the AFP headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.

From a total of 258 joint military drills conducted yearround between Filipino and US servicemen last year and this year, it was agreed during the Mutual Defense BoardSecurity Engagement Board (MDB-SEB) meeting hosted by the US Pacific Command in Hawaii that next year’s joint exercises would increase to 261.

“This means that we are leveling up the activities next year,” Año, who headed the AFP delegation to the Hawaii MDB-SEB meeting, said.

Aside from the joint humanitarian and disaster response and counterterrorism drills, next year’s bilateral military training will include territorial defense exercises.

President Duterte, upon his assumption to office, ordered the scaling down of the joint military training with the US, saying only the Americans benefited from these activities.

The presidential directive has resulted in the scrapping of the joint Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) as well as the joint Amphibious Landing Exercises (Phiblex).

CARAT is a naval joint engagement while Phiblex is a joint Marines exercises. All these exercises are aimed at training both forces in responding to any threats of invasion by foreign states by sea.

When reminded about this, Año explained the President’s directive only covered last year and this year’s activities.

“That was last year. Every year this changes as per the President’s recent declaration, he now wants to be friendlier with the US – after all US is not our enemy and China is also not our enemies,” Año said.

Asked for the specific instructions given by the President before the AFP chief left for Hawaii last week, Año said that he was ordered to continue the military engagement with the US being the Philippines number one ally.

Both the Philippines and the US are bound by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), an agreement that requires any of the two parties to come to the defense of the other in an event of foreign invasion.

Next year’s increased joint military drills, Año, explained, is not directed in any way to the ongoing territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea.

He said that all these joint drills will be confined within the five areas of the country, as stipulated in the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) betrween the US and the Philippines.

Going along with this increased joint military drills, Año said the US will also start construction of their respective facilities in all five EDCA-agreed key military areas where their forces will be staying while on training in the country.

Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, AFP spokesman and the AFP deputy chief for plans and programs, agreed that joint exercises next year would be the same as previous years – only that three aspects have been added.

“It’s just very minimal (increase). This year we focused more on HADR and counterterrorism trainings, which will also be conducted again next year,” Padilla said.

However, he said that aside from the counterterrorism training scheduled next year, other activities have been designed and agreed on for territorial defense.