Philippines To Buy 2 Maestrale Frigates From Italy

The Philippines is set to buy two Maestrale-class frigates from Italy, a defense official said Wednesday, as the Asian nation races to upgrade its military amid mounting territorial disputes with China.

The frigates, along with 12 FA-50 fighter aircraft, are the most significant items on the government’s 75 billion peso (US $1.7 billion) military modernization budget over the next five years, Defense Undersecretary Fernando Manalo said.

“We are modernizing not because we want to go to war with China,” he told a news conference.

He said the government had a sworn obligation to defend the “West Philippine Sea,” using the government’s preferred term for Philippine-claimed areas in the South China Sea.

“We are not saying that this is part of our preparations to assert our sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. What we are saying is that we cannot just give them up.”

The frigates would add to two refurbished Hamilton-class cutters formerly used by the US Coast Guard that the Philippines acquired from its US ally to upgrade its aging navy fleet, which includes some vessels that first saw action in World War II.

Manalo said the navy had already decided to acquire two new Maestrale-class frigates instead of buying used ones from the Italian navy, and had budgeted 18 billion pesos for them.

The Philippines could be ready to tender by the end of the year, he added.

Meanwhile, the government had alloted 18.9 billion pesos to acquire the fighter aircraft, which are built by South Korea, he added.

The modernization budget also provides for building or improving facilities to berth and provide maintenance to the vessels on the military’s shopping list, Manalo said.

Philippine President Vows To Rebuild Air Force by 2016

Philippine President Benigno Aquino vowed Monday to acquire fighter jets, air defense radar and other equipment within three years to bolster the country’s weak air force, amid a territorial dispute with China.

“I assure you that before I step down from office, our skies will be guarded by modern air assets,” he said in a speech during a visit at an air base in Clark, north of Manila. The speech was broadcast live on radio and television.

Among these are “lead-in fighters, long-range patrol aircraft, close-air-support aircraft,” as well as transport planes, attack- and multi-use helicopters, air defense radar and flight simulators.

He gave no details of the aircraft and equipment, nor the terms for their acquisition.

In January, an Aquino spokesman announced the government would buy 12 South Korean FA-50 fighter jets to be used for “training, interdiction and disaster response.”

The Philippines, a former US colony, retired the last of its US-designed F-5 fighters in 2005 and lacks air defense.

Aquino, whose six-year term ends in mid-2016, has set about modernizing the military in his first three years in office as tensions rise with China over overlapping territorial claims to islands and waters in the South China Sea.

The main focus was initially the navy with the acquisition of two Hamilton-class cutters decommissioned by the US Coast Guard.

The first of the two refurbished vessels became the Philippine Navy’s flagship in 2011, replacing a warship initially built for the US Navy in World War II.

The second cutter is set to arrive in the Philippines later this year.

Aquino said Monday he was committed to reversing the under-spending on military capability that he said had characterized the Philippines since the early 1990s.

“Over the past decades the air force had its wings broken and we relied on old and rickety planes and equipment,” he said.

Parliament has since authorized the defense department to spend 75 billion pesos (US $1.7 billion) on modernizing the military over the next five years, Aquino added.

This is on top the more than 19 billion pesos that it had spent over the past three years for this purpose.

Between 1992 and 2010, the Philippines spent just 33 billion pesos for military modernization, Aquino said.

US Trains Philippines On Drones Amid China Fears

US troops trained their Philippine counterparts how to use surveillance drones Friday, as Manila seeks to boost military ties with Washington and counter what it perceives as a rising security threat from China.

The naval exercises are part of annual training operations between the two defense partners, but they have come under closer scrutiny this year due to simmering tensions between Manila and Beijing over rival claims to the South China Sea.

At a naval base around 13 kilometers (eight miles) southwest of the capital Manila, US Navy SEALs taught Filipino soldiers how to use small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, launching one from a boat at sea. It circled the base and landed in the water.

US maritime civil affairs officer Jeremy Eden said these were the smaller “Puma” drones used only for surveillance and not the more lethal, armed versions employed in Afghanistan.

“They (the Filipinos) are very interested and highly motivated to learn and if they acquire the systems, they will use them effectively,” Eden said.

The drones would be useful for the poorlyequipped Philippine military, which faces both internal insurgencies and potential external threats, said Lt. Jojit Fiscar, a senior coordinator of the naval exercises.

“This would be a very good instrument to use. This unmanned aerial vehicle can monitor the actual movement of the targets,” he said.

US and Philippine troops also practiced marksmanship and piloting small rubber boats that are frequently used by naval commandos.

Military officials from both sides stressed that the exercises had nothing to do with China’s claim to the South China Sea.

But Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin reiterated Friday that the Philippines was looking to give the United States greater access to its military bases, saying this was needed to respond to China’s threats.

“At this point in time, we cannot stand alone. We need allies. If we don’t do this, we will be bullied by bigger powers, and that is what is happening now: There is China, sitting on our territory,” Gazmin said.

“What are we going to do? Wait till they get into our garage?”

On Thursday, he said the Philippines wanted to give the United States and also Japan greater access to its military bases.

President Benigno Aquino’s spokeswoman, Abigail Valte, said separately that any increased US presence would comply with the Philippine constitution.

She also said China should not object. “Whatever we do within our territory... is perfectly within our rights.”

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital South China Sea, even waters close to the shores of its smaller neighbors.

Tensions between Beijing and other claimants to the sea, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, have escalated in recent years amid a series of Chinese political and military actions to assert its claims to the waters.

Philippines: Chinese Military In South China Sea Threatens Peace

The Philippines said Sunday that an increasing Chinese military and paramilitary presence in the disputed South China Sea was a threat to regional peace.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario made the statement in a press release issued at a regional security forum attended by his counterparts from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China.

“Del Rosario today expressed serious concern over the increasing militarisation of the South China Sea,” the statement said.

He said there was a “massive presence of Chinese military and paramilitary ships” at two groups of islets within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone called Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal.

Del Rosario described the Chinese military presence at these islets as “threats to efforts to maintain maritime peace and stability in the region”.

Del Rosario said the Chinese actions violated a pact made in 2002 in which rival claimants to the sea pledged not to take any actions that may increase tensions.

The declaration on conduct signed by ASEAN nations and China also committed rival claimants to resolve their disputes “without resorting to the threat or use of force.”

“We reiterate our continued advocacy for a peaceful and rules-based settlement of disputes in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law,” Del Rosario said.

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital and potentially resource-rich South China Sea, even waters approaching the coasts of neighbouring countries.

ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Taiwan, also have competing claims to parts of the sea.

The rivalries have for decades been a source of regional tension, with China and Vietnam fighting deadly battles for control of some islands in the sea.

Tensions have built in recent years with the Philippines, Vietnam and some other countries expressing concern at increasingly assertive Chinese military and diplomatic tactics to assert control of the sea.

Manila says China has effectively occupied Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground far closer to Philippine land than Chinese, for more than a year.

The Philippines says China has recently also deployed vessels to intimidate a tiny Philippine garrison on Second Thomas Shoal that has been stationed there since the mid 1990s.

The Philippine military plans air, naval bases at Subic with access for US

The Philippine military has revived plans to build new air and naval bases at Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base that American forces could use to counter China's creeping presence in the disputed South China Sea, senior navy officials said.

The proposed bases in the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, coincides with a resurgence of U.S. warships, planes and personnel in the region as Washington turns its attention to a newly assertive China and shifts its foreign, economic and security policy towards Asia.

The bases would allow the Philippines to station warships and fighter jets just 124 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal, a contentious area of the South China Sea now controlled by China after a tense standoff last year.

The Philippine Navy, whose resources and battle capabilities are no match for China's growing naval might, has yet to formally present its 10-billion-peso ($230 million) base development plan to President Benigno Aquino.

But senior officials say they believe it has a strong chance of winning approval as Aquino seeks to upgrade the country's decrepit forces.

The Philippine Congress last year approved $1.8 billion for military modernization, with the bulk going to acquisition of ships, aircraft and equipment such as radar. The military had raised the plan in the past, but is now pushing it with more urgency following a series of naval stand-offs with China.

"The chances of this plan taking off under President Aquino are high because his administration has been very supportive in terms of equipment upgrade," said a senior military officer who asked not to be identified.

"The people around him understood our needs and more importantly, what our country is facing at this time."

Subic, a deep-water port sheltered by jungle-clad mountains 80 km (50 miles) north of Manila, has been a special economic zone since U.S. forces were evicted in 1992, ending 94 years of American military presence in the Philippines and shutting the largest U.S. military installation in Southeast Asia.

Since then, American warships and planes have been allowed to visit the Philippines for maintenance and refuelling.

U.S. military "rotations" through the Philippines have become more frequent as Beijing grows more assertive in the South China Sea, a vast expanse of mineral-rich waters and vital sea lanes claimed entirely by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines - one of Asia's biggest security flashpoints.

A 30-hectare (74-acre) area has been identified for the bases, which would station fighter jets and the Philippines' biggest warships that patrol the disputed sea, including two Hamilton-class cutter ships it acquired for free from the United States.

The plan has taken on added urgency since a tense two-month standoff last year between Chinese and Philippine ships at the Scarborough Shoal, which is only about 124 nautical miles off the Philippine coast. Chinese ships now control the shoal, often chasing away Filipino fishermen.

U.S. and Philippine navy ships begin war games near the shoal on Thursday.

The South China Sea dispute will again loom large over regional diplomacy next week when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joins his counterparts from Southeast Asian nations and China among other countries for an annual meeting in Brunei.

The Philippines plans to raise the issue of Chinese ships' "encroachment" near another disputed coral reef where Manila recently beefed up its small military presence, diplomatic sources told Reuters. China in turn has accused the Philippines of "illegal occupation" of the reef, which is a strategic gateway to an area believed to be rich in oil and natural gas.

RISE IN U.S. NAVY VISITS

There is no plan to allow the United States to rebuild its old bases, a sensitive issue in the Philippines where a nationalist backlash against the U.S. military helped lead to the 1992 closure of Subic and Clark Air Base.

New Philippine air and naval bases, however, would give visiting U.S. warships more security to launch operations in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. A Visiting Forces Agreement, ratified by the Philippine Senate in 1999, allows U.S. forces full access to Philippine bases.

Roberto Garcia, chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), which oversees the Subic Bay Freeport, confirmed the plan to build the new bases, saying he had shelved plans in the area for a theme park to make way for it.

"I don't see any problem if the government wants to build an air and naval base in the Freeport area," Garcia said, noting the increase in the number of U.S. military port calls to Subic.

This year alone, 72 U.S. warships and submarines visited Subic, compared with 88 for all of 2012, 54 in 2011 and 51 in 2010, according to official data.

The Philippine military also wants to revive an airstrip that once handled some of the largest military aircraft in the U.S. arsenal. The former Cubi Point Naval Air Station, carved out of a mountain adjoining Subic, served FedEx Corp FDX.N cargo plans after the U.S. forces withdrew.

But FedEx ceased operations at the airstrip, now called Subic Bay International Airport, in 2009. Two senior air force officers told Reuters the military had proposed to Aquino to convert parts of the airstrip into an air base.

Another Philippine navy officer said the arrival in a few weeks of a second Hamilton-class cutter from the United States would put pressure on the navy to find a suitable port for large warships.

Since 2002, U.S. forces helping fight al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in the southern Philippines have shared several bases with Philippine troops. U.S. Navy surveillance planes are allocated spaces in a local air force base at Clark.

"We've seen a lot of similar 'joint use' arrangement. The U.S. does not want bases, only access," a Philippine navy captain familiar with the Subic proposal told Reuters.

"We will share our bases with them and I am sure the U.S. would love them."

Militants kill army major, soldier in Mindanao

Suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group ambushed and killed a Philippine Army major and a soldier and wounded four others on the island province of Basilan in volatile Mindanao, the military reported on Tuesday.

Colonel Rodrigo Gregorio, the regional military spokesman, said two suspected Abu Sayyaf members were also killed in the gunbattle that ensued following the ambush in a remote “barangay” (village) in the town of Al Barka, Basilan on Monday afternoon.

Gregorio identified the slain officer as Major Alin Kannung, the executive officer of the Army’s 32nd Infantry Battalion stationed in Basilan, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) along with Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Tawi and Sulu as well as Marawi City.

According to Gregorio, Kannung headed a “government humanitarian convoy” on its way to deliver goats and other livestock to Al Barka village residents when about 30 heavily armed Abu Sayyaf militants staged the ambush.

The militants, he said, left behind two of their slain comrades when they fled as they also brought along with them three others believed to have been wounded in the encounter.

Gregorio said the project was part of the government livelihood assistance programme for residents in conflict-affected areas in troubled Southern Philippines.

According to Gregorio, Kannung was a former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who was integrated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines when the government and the front signed a peace agreement in 1996.

He suspected that Kannung, a native of Al Barka, could have incurred the ire of the Abu Sayyaf for his involvement in the ongoing campaign against the militants since joining the Philippine Army.

The Abu Sayyaf gained local and international notoriety through a series of kidnap-for-ransom cases of Filipinos and foreigners, marred by the beheading of some of their hostages.

The military said continuous operations have drastically reduced the number of the extremists but acknowledged they remained a threat especially to the safety and security of residents of Basilan and Sulu where they have operated with impunity.

Regional and Filipino security experts have also confirmed the link of the Abu Sayyaf to the global Al Qaeda terrorist network through the Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah militants.