SENATE President Miguel Zubiri on Monday batted for ramping up government support for developing the local arms sector to allow it to provide more of the country’s security materiel requirements amid continuing threats to its sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Speaking at a Committee on National Defense hearing on the Philippine Defense Industry Development Act (PDIDA) and related bills, Zubiri stressed he had been strongly advocating for these, “as a key measure in support of our ongoing efforts to build a credible and concrete defense program.”
Zubiri said: “Amidst growing national concern over our sovereignty, it is very timely that we now consider the merits of revitalizing our Self-Reliant Defense Posture program and building a local defense industry that would supply the needs of our Armed Forces.”
The Monday hearing, presided over by Senate Defense panel chairman Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, also took up other related measures as the PDIDA.
Although the Philippines has defense cooperation with many foreign allies, Zubiri said, “we cannot afford to rely on them entirely. Overreliance on our allies leaves us on the back foot—always waiting, and always dependent on what they will supply us with.”
Zubiri added, in Filipino, he did not wish a repeat of having the Philippine president “making the rounds of other countries begging for arms and bullets to help those defending it,” an apparent reference to 2017 when then President Duterte had to secure military assistance from friendly neighbors to quell home-grown terrorists who mounted the Marawi siege.
The Senate chief also noted that, “We are among the top importers of arms here in the Asean, spending $338 million USD in arms imports in 2021—next only to Singapore (at $361 million) and Myanmar (at $394 million).
Unlike Singapore, however, Zubiri reminded that “we have a great deal of resources at our disposal,” noting that “unlike Myanmar, we are not operating under military rule. So why is our arms importation nearly as costly as theirs?”
A closer comparison would be Indonesia, “which in 2021 allocated 3.9 percent of its overall government spending towards military expenditure— not far from the 3.8 percent that we directed towards the military.”
And yet, Zubiri said, Indonesia’s arms imports came in at only $68 million USD, “a far cry from our $338 million,” he added.
That means, he said, that the manufacturing industry of Indonesia in arms and armaments is big, and their imports is small.
“We need to be able to produce our own needs, on our own time. We have the resources. We have the manpower—and the skills. And I am quite hopeful that we also now have the political will to push this through.”
And in the Legislative Executive Development Advisoty Council (Ledac), he recalled that “we discussed this with the President, and he is really very keen on coming up with our own defense industry.”
With the budget season, lawmakers must again address the “still glaring gaps in the modernization of our Armed Forces. We are of course committed to increasing the budget of the AFP, but we also have to look ahead beyond their needs over the next year, and into the future of our overall defense strategy.”
Senate panel chief Sen. Jinggoy Estrada assured that the National Defense Act is in the agenda as well.
Image credits: Senate PRIB