SPEAKING
FREELY Manila seeks revival of military
self-reliance By Ava Patricia C
Avila
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
Some 40 years since
its conception, after several unsuccessful
attempts at initiating take-off, as well as
numerous unrealised plans, the Philippines'
Department of National Defence has embarked yet
again on a policy-push towards defense-industrial
self-sufficiency. The June 2012 Plan to revive the
Department's Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP)
will form part of its Capability Upgrade Program,
focused on securing indigenous production of
weapon systems, platforms and armaments.
Revitalisation of the Philippine's search
for SRDP comes hard on
the heels of a series of
testing challenges to the country's resilience
posture, including attempted coups d'etat, natural
disasters, and terrorism/insurgency incidents, as
well as threats to sovereignty, such as the
Mischief Reef debacle.
While the incidents
have produced a mixture of embarrassment,
indignation and nationalistic fervor, all have
revealed the country's vulnerability to evolving
traditional and non-traditional security threats.
However, such low levels of capability and
preparedness to respond to these emerging threats
is unsurprising, given that the Philippines'
defense and security sector is one of the worst
resourced in Southeast Asia.
Yet, the
Philippines was not always so militarily
enfeebled. Five decades ago, the Philippines was
second to none in military might amongst Southeast
Asian states. Shortly after World War II, the
United States supplied the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) with an array of modern weapons,
and the AFP became the envy of neighboring
nations. Indeed, into the 1960s, the Philippines
was the major regional military power in terms of
air and naval power.
On the back of this
defense build-up, former president Ferdinand
Marcos signed the 1974 Presidential Decree 415,
otherwise known as the Self-Reliant Defense
Posture (SRDP) Law. With the escalation of the
secessionist movement in southern Philippines and
the immediate need for military hardware, SRDP
served as the necessary mandate to uphold the
sovereignty of the state through non-dependent
protection of the national territory. Its
underlying mission was to develop a local defense
industry to support material requirements of the
AFP. The early years of the program enjoyed some
success, with 15 corporations as members of the
Philippine Defense Industries supplying military
hardware to the AFP.
Demise of defence
capability Following Presidential Decree
415, the Philippines, inexplicably, lost its way
in ensuring the provision of broad-based security.
Today, the country finds itself as the weakest
member of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) in both defense expenditure and
military capability. The AFP is left in the
ignominious position of scraping together
resources to maintain the operationality of its
remaining aging aircraft and warships.
After more than three decades, the SRDP
has failed to achieve any of its objectives. The
Philippine Navy (PN), for instance, is in a sorry
state. Most of its warships are of World War
II-vintage, and yet, as an archipelagic country,
the navy badly needs ships to patrol the vast
territorial waters consisting of 7,107 islands.
Except for some companies like ARMSCOR that
continue to manufacture armaments, most private
defense companies have found it difficult to
sustain production, due to insufficiency of
defense acquisition budgets, graft, corruption,
inflation, and a lack of support from the national
leadership.
The malaise in the Philippine
defense sector was revealed in a 2003 Joint
Defense Assessment Report that examined the
performance of the AFP in its long-running battle
against local insurgents as a means of determining
the degree and nature of technical assistance,
field expertise, and funding from the United
States. One of the report's key findings was that
the AFP has not been capable of defusing threats,
largely because of systemic letdowns in policy
planning and development, personnel management and
leadership, budgeting and resource management, and
acquisition. Over time, these failures have
fostered the growth of a culture of corruption
within the Philippine defense establishment,
hindering substantive progress at all levels.
The turn around ... ? At just
US$1.2 billion per annum, Philippine defense is by
far the most poorly funded military in Southeast
Asia. However, the country has moved a major
increase in defense expenditure for financial year
2011 in an effort to eliminate domestic
insurgency, and in reaction to the threatening
military build-up in China. Additionally, in the
first quarter of 2012, Philippine economic growth
climbed by 6.4% - reportedly the fastest in the
region. This turnaround is surprising looking at
the country's previous defense and economic
trajectories, suggesting that the government has
put in place the elements for a resurgence of
defense spending, sourced by robust economic
growth.
In his first formal address in
July 2010 as the Philippine's new
commander-in-chief, President Benigno Aquino III
vowed to modernize the AFP for both territorial
defense and disaster relief missions. Since then,
the armed forces have been shopping for military
hardware. Among the more recently acquired
hardware are 18 basic trainer aircraft from Italy
and four combat utility helicopters from Poland.
Last year, PN purchased a decommissioned
coastguard cutter from the United States and
another one is set to be delivered later this
year.
Furthermore, 138 procurement
projects valued at $1.6 billion are being
considered for funding by the end of July. In
addition, the government is in talks with the
Italian Defense Ministry to sign a five-year
agreement for the acquisition of military
hardware, including medium-lift aircraft,
coast-watch system radars, multi-role combat
aircraft and long-range patrol aircraft. The
Philippine Department of National Defense is also
looking at other possible suppliers, such as South
Korea, Spain and France. In his first months as
president, Aquino disbursed more than $395 million
on AFP modernization projects compared with an
average of only $51 million annually during the
previous 15 years.
Defense: a stimulus
or drag on development? Clearly, there is a
concern as to the appropriateness of rising
defense expenditure. From a social perspective,
there are more pressing domestic issues requiring
attention, such as poverty, education,
unemployment, and housing problems. Yet, Manila is
exploring whether a defense build-up might benefit
both the AFP and the country's economic and social
development. Research has shown that military
spending stimulates economic activity, creating
beneficial economic and technological spin-offs to
local industry. In essence, successful defense
reform requires rapid economic growth, and vice
versa.
The challenge is for the government
is to be more creative in managing its defense
resources to ensure a contribution to broader
national security capability. For years,
government institutions, the defense department
included, have been plagued with corruption and
financial mismanagement. From neighboring
countries, two lessons can be learned. One is to
encourage technology transfer through
acquisition-related offsets. In this regard,
Indonesia is seeking to implement its first
official offset policy, having the potential to
leverage acquisition-related investment through
Jakarta's strong trading ties with the United
States and South Korea. Second, is to look at
Singapore's defense industry and R&D efforts
in terms of integrating systems from diverse
sources and tailoring them to specific local
requirements.
If funds are appropriately
channeled and properly managed, SRDP can be
developed and enhanced to promote a local defense
industry that can offer employment opportunities,
improve the woefully low level of Philippine
technological expertise, and thus eventually
support both defense and development.
Ava Patricia C Avila is a PhD
candidate at Cranfield University, UK.
(Copyright 2012 Ava Patricia C Avila)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular
contributors.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road,
Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
