UNITED States Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will fly to Manila to personally witness the war games involving more than 7,000 Filipino and American troops.
It will be the first time for a US defense secretary to fly to Manila for the bilateral exercise.
The presence of Carter in the Exercise Balikatan, an annual military event testing the joint capability of the Armed Forces and the United States military to respond to regional crisis, was confirmed by US Marine Lt. Gen. John Toolan during the formal opening of the war games on Monday.
“The secretary is going to be here toward the end of the exercise and he will actually observe a couple of things he’s very interested in…I believe that really, his main purpose here is to come and reaffirm that the relationship that we have with the Philippines is rock solid, and we’re side by side,” he said.
Carter’s presence in the Balikatan would be the first for a US defense official and it would come as both the US and the Philippines continuously voice their concerns over China’s aggressive military activities in the West Philippine Sea.
Toolan said, aside from the reaffirmation of the Philippine-US defense relations, Carter also wanted to see how the high-mobility artillery rocket system works, especially that it would be the first time also that the US would use it in its joint training with the country.
The weapon would be fired live at Crow Valley in Tarlac, along with the other equipment that the US will bring in.
“What I mentioned earlier about the high-mobility artillery rocket system and how that works,” said Toolan of Carter’s visit. “He’s also going to spend some time out at sea with the US Navy ships that will be out there.”
Toolan said it was Carter who wanted to visit the war games, which will run up to April 14 and would be joined by Australia and witnessed by the militaries of Southeast Asia.
“He realized how important it is, this exercise…so that’s why he’s coming,” the US Marine general said. Other than the use and firing of rockets, Toolan, said what is new in this year’s training is the use of command and control in warfare.
“We’re going to work on that command and control apparatus so that communications can be made very quickly and we can get response forces,” he said.
Image credits: Mau Victa