“(Retired Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan) believes the country should be resolute in defending our claimed territory in the disputed sea lane, as weakness would only invite more bullying and intimidation by the vastly more superior Chinese military”
Amid the territorial and maritime dispute with China in the South China Sea, the national government has realized, somewhat belatedly, that the country needs to develop a credible defense posture.
That essentially means having adequate ground, air and naval forces that can at the very least deter any aggressive action or threat of attack by a hostile country.
But building up our military – among the weakest in Southeast Asia, according to analysts – involves huge resources that we can hardly afford at this time.
The acquisition of advanced jet fighter planes, fully equipped naval and coast guard vessels that can patrol our archipelago for weeks at a time, and battle tanks, missile and artillery systems will cost not only billions but tens of trillions of pesos.
Our air force simply cannot afford to buy state-of-the-art jet fighters developed by the US, nor sophisticated missile systems that can reach far-away targets.
The Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon we see on TV footage used by the Ukrainian army with devastating impact against Russian tanks costs $100,000 each, or P5 million for the gadget alone, not to mention the cost of the rockets used especially for that type of weapon system.
To prioritize the acquisition of expensive defense equipment over equally costly infrastructure projects for economic development appears morally indefensible given that about a third of all Filipinos now survive on less than $2 a day.
The rule of thumb is governments should spend no less than two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for defense so that citizens can sleep soundly at night knowing they have the military to protect them from harm.
The Philippines obviously cannot allot two percent of its nearly P6 trillion budget for this year when we still have to pay our foreign debt for the acquisition of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
And did you know that of our annual budget for our armed forces, roughly 80 percent goes to the salaries and pensions of both active and retired men and women in uniform?
What’s important at this point, according to our two main resource persons in our Saturday News Forum in Quezon City, is to build military alliances with other countries.
We already have the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States signed back in 1951 that US President Joe Biden reiterated last year is an “ironclad guarantee” they will come to our defense if we’re attacked by a third country.
But even if the MDT is there, we cannot rely solely on the security umbrella the US provides even after more than seven decades.
As we do not have the luxury of setting aside two percent or more of our GDP for our defense requirements, we need to ramp up security alliances with other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and the other ASEAN countries, among others.
It’s one thing to uphold national security against a homegrown armed rebellion armed only with handguns, rifles and land mines.
It’s quite another to deal with an adversary armed with nuclear warheads and advanced armaments capable of inflicting death and destruction on a massive scale.
It’s important, therefore, to strive for a credible defense posture that we can afford at this stage in our economic development.
Former Deputy of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Edilberto Adan, who also used to head the Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces and is an active member of the Association of Generals and Flag Officers (AGFO), stood as one of our two resource persons in our April 15 Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.
He emphasized the need for us to strengthen our defense capabilities even if we cannot hope to match our neighbor China in deploying Coast Guard vessels and maritime militia as part of our response to our neighbor’s seizure of islets we claim as part of our Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea.
The former military official believes the country should be resolute in defending our claimed territory in the disputed sea lane, as weakness would only invite more bullying and intimidation by the vastly more superior Chinese military.
The same sentiment has been expressed by De La Salle University International Studies Professor Renato Cruz de Castro.
The annual Balikatan military exercises with the US military and the establishment of four additional sites for the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in addition to the already existing five sites, he said, should demonstrate to the outside world that we are determined to protect our national sovereignty and territorial integrity despite our limited military capabilities.
(Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)