Japan reiterates strengthening ties with Phl

TOKYO – After meeting with President Duterte here last Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to continue supporting the Duterte administration’s infrastructure, peace and development efforts and to further strengthen its ties with the Philippines.

Japan is the top provider of official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines, providing a total of $5.84 billion as of the end of September, according to official data. It is also the fifth largest provider of ODA grants during the same period, with total assistance of $141.33 million.

The Philippines and Japan would also strengthen their cooperation on defense policy and capacity building.

“Our two countries as strategic partners are closely cooperating in the area of security as well. While we will continue to engage in joint exercises and provide support in capacity building, we also intend to deepen our dialogue on the policy front,” Abe said.

Filipino defense and military planners, together with their American counterparts, have lined up a total of 280 bilateral military activities in the Philippines for this year, acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan yesterday told delegates at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue 2019’s 18th Asia Security Summit in Singapore.

“With the Philippines, we have 280 bilateral defense activities planned for 2019 alone. Our flagship Exercise Balikatan this year incorporated fifth generation F-35 fighters for the first time,” Shanahan told the gathering of top defense and military leaders from the Indo-Pacific region and from other countries.

Exercise Balikatan is a joint military training exercise between the US and Filipino soldiers being carried out on a yearly basis under the auspices of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the two allied states.

Shanahan added the US forces, on rotation basis, are currently deployed in the Philippines to help combat terrorism, referring to a contingent of US forces currently based in key areas of Mindanao.

Shanahan stressed the United States was investing heavily in new military technology to combat fresh threats and maintain its superiority and capability to defend its Asian allies.

“The Indo-Pacific is our priority theater. We are where we belong. We are investing in the region,” he said.

The US official took note of Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, agitating tensions among countries in the region, including the Philippines.

“China can and should have a cooperative relationship with the rest of the region... But behavior that erodes other nations’ sovereignty and sows distrust of China’s intentions must end,” Shanahan told the forum.

“Until it does, we stand against a myopic, narrow and parochial vision of the future, and we stand for the free and open order that has benefitted us all, including China,” he said.