PH-US defense guidelines to be ‘responsive’ to challenges – Marcos

ASIAN ALLY. President Marcos is escorted by Commander of Troops Army Col. David Rowland, during an arrival ceremony at the Pentagon in Virginia, United States on May 3, 2023. (Photo from AFP)

WASHINGTON D.C., United States — Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday (Friday, Manila time) believes the new bilateral defense guidelines between Philippines and United States will be “responsive” to the current challenges being faced by both countries.

The guidelines outline the commitment of the US to the defense of the Philippines.

The document aims to “guide priority areas of defense cooperation” to respond to security challenges of “shared concern” that the two nations are dealing with.

“Well, it’s one that is responsive to the challenges that we face and that approaches and finds ways to solve those problems, those challenges on a multidimensional basis,” Marcos said when asked about the parameters.

The defense departments of the US and the Philippines created the bilateral defense guidelines between the two countries to modernize alliance cooperation for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

The ground rules reaffirmed an armed conflict in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea on aircraft or public vessels, coast guards, would invoke mutual defense commitments under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.

Under the guidelines, Manila and Washington will expand cooperation on maritime security and maritime domain awareness, including the continued conduct of combined maritime activities, but not limited to joint patrols.

Marcos said defense and security are among the “urgent” issues the US and the Philippines need to attend to, adding that these can no longer be “isolated as one issue.”

“There are attendant and ancillary issues that hope — that helped solved the problem and that are part of the solution and so again we must really be looking towards the… for example, on the economic side, we must be looking to adjust our relationship as we all our trying to adjust and to transform our economies,” he said.

The President also stressed the need to focus on the new economy emerging from the post-pandemic world.

“And with the impacting forces of the war in the Ukraine… these are issues that we never really had to deal with before,” he said.

In a meeting at the Pentagon on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated Washington’s commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities as the allies develop a Security Sector Assistance Roadmap.

This is to guide shared defense modernization investments over the next five to 10 years.

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