Page 2 of
2 Philippines builds anti-China
muscle By George
Amurao
Last year, the government authorized
the release of 4.9 billion pesos for this purpose.
An estimated 423 million pesos were mobilized to
purchase a retired Hamilton-class high endurance
cutter from the US through the US Foreign Military
Sales program. The 378-foot long cutter, formerly
known as USCGC Hamilton, has been renamed the BRP
Gregorio del Pilar (after the young Filipino
general who was killed defending Tirad Pass
against American soldiers in 1899). Displacing
more than 3,000 tons with a maximum speed of 28
knots, the cutter will replace the Cannon-class
Rajah Humabon as the Philippine Navy's flagship.
Though its surface search radar and
Phalanx CIWS were removed before delivery to the
Philippines, the cutter has undergone refitting
and rearming to equip it for its patrol duties in the
Spratlys. The plan for
securing Malampaya entails the procurement of
three such vessels. The Hamilton's sister ship,
the USCGC Dallas, will be decommissioned and
turned over to the Philippine government in either
the first or second quarter of this year. In
December 2011, defense secretary Gazmin led a
delegation to Washington seeking permission to
purchase a third sister ship.
The AFP's
modernization for external defense appears to be
running along two parallel lines: weapons to be
acquired under phase two of CUP and those funded
by Malampaya project revenues ostensibly for use
in securing the natural gas wells that are
geographically close to the disputed Spratlys.
One defense analyst based in the
Philippines noted that it was rather "fortuitous"
that the Chinese chose to "act up just as Phase 1
- the ISO [internal security operations]-centric
phase - ended". Indeed, the threat that China
poses not only to isles and reefs in the South
China Sea claimed by the Philippines but also to
the country's revenue-generating sites like
Malampaya have proved to be a strong spur to the
Aquino administration to fast-track and prioritize
the acquisition of more modern weapons.
Though under CUP phase two the government
plans to acquire just trainer aircraft for the
LIFT program, as part of the long planned
transition to multi-role combat aircraft, Aquino
announced in December 2011 his intent to go one
step further and purchase second-hand F-16
fighters from the US.
In January this
year, the Department of National Defense (DND)
announced 138 projects to modernize the AFP. No
other details were given in regard to the source
of funding (whether through the CUP allocation or
revenues from Malampaya), nor did the DND give
specific details as to what kind of aircraft or
naval vessels and other equipment are on its wish
list.
Air Force Vice Commander Maj Gen
Renato Lorenzo Sanchez said 56 new aircraft and 23
refurbished ones will be purchased, along with
high-tech gear like a 3-D radar system. His
statement, however, implied that most if not all
of the items targeted for acquisition will be for
territorial defense: "By 2016, we shall have
expanded our air space and maritime domain
awareness and provided territorial defense
capability."
Acquiring such weaponry,
however, will not automatically lead to immediate
combat readiness and attaining an external defense
capability sufficient to offer deterrence
vis-เ-vis China will take years. A good example of
the time required can be seen in the training
required to fly multi-role combat aircraft.
Dzirhan Mahadzir, a defense analyst based in Kuala
Lumpur, said pilot training in a modern fighter
aircraft at the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF)
usually lasts one to three years, not including
the time for training to be a regular pilot and
later for lead-in fighter training.
The
RMAF has a LIFT program in place and has operated
multi-role combat aircraft for the past several
years. In contrast, the Philippines has not had a
fighter aircraft since 2005, when the F-5 was
retired. (The PAF's S-211 is a trainer aircraft).
To be fair, the quote from Maj Gen Sanchez implies
that the armed forces recognize that it needs at
least four years to play catch up.
Long-time ally The Philippines'
wild card appears to be its rejuvenated strategic
alliance with the US - at least until it has the
time to develop a strong indigenous territorial
defense capability. For decades, the country
enjoyed American protection, especially during the
time when two of the biggest American military
bases outside of the US mainland, Subic and Clark,
were located in the Philippines.
US
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, during their tour of the region
last year, promoted a peaceful resolution to the
competing claims in the Spratlys. The US
government's actions, however, have expressed
explicitly its intentions of making its presence
strongly felt in the region to counter-balance
China's rising military might and influence.
On one hand, Washington has engaged
Southeast Asian countries through ASEAN, the East
Asia Summit and other regional forums to assert
its stance that the South China Sea should remain
as a neutral sea lane in the region. On the other,
it has recently strengthened military links with
allies in the region, including Indonesia,
Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.
The US has renewed strategic ties with
former Cold War era adversary Vietnam, symbolized
most potently by the docking of the US Navy
aircraft carrier USS George Washington last year
at Danang naval base, which was held and used by
the Americans during the Vietnam War. Washington
also lifted its 10-year moratorium on material
support for Indonesia's KOPASSUS commando unit due
to its history of human rights abuses. The massive
Cobra Gold joint military exercises between US,
Thai and other regional troops have continued and
expanded in recent years.
As a clear
demonstration of support for its Philippine ally,
the US Navy and Marines conducted an 11-day
Cooperation Afloat Readiness Training (CARAT)
military exercise at the height of the Spratlys
crisis last year, this time off the coast of
Palawan, just a few hundred nautical miles from
the disputed territory. Several US warships also
paid port calls to Manila in 2011 and so far this
year. The US also announced it will soon deploy
2,500 US Marines to Australia, complementing
America's berthing rights in Singapore for its
naval ships.
It is often said that in
international relations there are no permanent
friends, only permanent interests. Though still
smarting from its expulsion out of its two biggest
military bases in the region in 1991 by the
Philippine Senate, the US has a new common
interest with the Philippines in the form of
China's recent aggression in the Spratlys.
As the two allies tiptoe around the
Philippine constitutional provision banning
foreign military bases in the country, the
Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) forged in 1999 has
allowed the US to rotate some 600 troops, some of
whom belong to elite special operations units, in
southern Mindanao in pursuit of Washington's
ongoing war on terror.
Now, the current
crisis over the Spratlys has given both sides an
excuse to work side by side in resisting China,
despite protests from Philippine nationalists and
leftists who fear the country could get caught in
a crossfire should the US and China eventually
clash. Analysts wonder up to what extent the US
would help the Philippines if a shooting war broke
out with China, particularly if the Philippine
military was only strong enough to offer token
resistance to China. It's also unclear whether the
Philippines-US Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 would
cover an aggressor's attack against Philippine
assets in disputed islands outside of the
country's jurisdiction.
With the first
phase of CUP now concluded and the second one in
the works, how will the Philippines' defense
infrastructure look in the near future? Strategic
analysts already wonder whether the Aquino
administration (and the next one) will have the
political will and sufficient funds to sustain
modernization efforts.
More important,
they wonder whether the AFP will eventually be
able to run independently a modern external
defense system, or will history repeat itself and
see the Philippines lapse back to dependency on
the US for its own security and protection? Doubts
are rising across the region whether the US could
really deter China in a future shooting war.
As of now, the Philippines has taken
initial steps to build a more credible military
defense against China and other neighboring
countries, not only for the bounty that the
Spratlys offers but for its own territorial
integrity. Building and maintaining the required
support infrastructure such as enhanced air and
naval bases, radar facilities and missile systems
to support more modern air and naval assets, not
to mention the extensive training of soldiers to
manage these facilities, will take years to
accomplish.
Until then, the Philippines
will continue to rely on diplomatic ties with its
regional neighbors and military links with the US
to keep the Chinese dragon at bay.
George Amurao, a former
journalist in Manila, until recently worked for
the Southeast Asian Press Alliance. He is now with
Mahidol University International College in
Bangkok, Thailand.
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