Next year’s Balikatan to evolve amid growing threats in the region
n By Vince Lopez
More complex and challenging Balikatan military exercises are likely on the table next year, US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said Saturday as she acknowledged growing “threats” to the region, including “challenges to the rules-based international order through provocations in the West Philippine Sea.”
“What happens here is critical to what happens in the Indo-Pacific region,” she said “We’ve seen some threats to this region, probably more in the last several years.”
Carlson noted that this year’s military exercises that gathered some 17,000 Filipino, American and Australian troops, was “absolutely the most complex we have ever done.”
“Interoperability is hard… They will continue to make the complexity even more challenging because that is what we need to do to meet the challenges of the real world. We can expect the complexities to grow,” she said.
The ambassador said it is important for both countries to “strengthen our alliance so that we are better able to respond” to challenges in the region.
Amid tensions in the West Philippine Sea, US President Joe Biden is expected to reaffirm Washington’s continuous support for Manila during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit next week.
“I’m certain that at their meeting at the White House, President Biden will reaffirm the strong friendship between our two countries. We are not only friends, partners and allies, we are family… Those connections are deep and they are very, very strong,” Carlson said.
President Marcos Jr. will leave for Washington today (Sunday afternoon) United States on Sunday afternoon for his 1st official working visit as President of the Philippines and is set to meet Biden at the White House on May 1.
DFA spokesperson Teresita Daza said Mr. Marcos will be in the US until May 4 for his official visit, after which he will proceed to London for the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla.
“The President is expected to advance Philippines’ socioeconomic development priorities and harness closer partnership in such areas as agriculture, energy, climate change, digital transformation and technology, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, supply chains and infrastructure. The US is a major bilateral trade and official development assistance partner and maintains a shared commitment with the Philippines for more dynamic economic relations,” Daza said.
“Other scheduled activities of the President will include meetings with legislators, major US companies and business organizations and he will also deliver a major policy speech and a think tank in Washington D.C. While in Washington, he will also meet with members of the Filipino community who represent the Philippine-American Diaspora in the United States numbering some 4.4 million,” she added.