Lorenzana: Americans have been informed of end to military exercises

Defense officials of the United States have been informed about President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to end to joint military exercises between the Philippines and its treaty ally, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has said.

“The Americans, they are still hoping they can still conduct military exercises next year,” Lorenzana said in a news forum on Friday.

Lorenzana said the President, in pursuing an independent foreign policy, didn't want to be too dependent on one foreign country.

Duterte and Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. have insisted that the mandate for an independent foreign policy was enshrined in the Constitution.

Earlier Duterte said he would no longer allow joint military exercises with the US and that the amphibious landing exercises being held from October 4 to 12 would be the last during his term as president.

Duterte's six year term will end in 2022.

He has also announced that the country would no longer join joint patrols with foreign navies in the South China Sea.

Lorenzana said that the US and the Philippines have not been conducting “joint patrols” but only having “passing exercises” in the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the disputed waters.

Filipino fishermen continue to be kept out of the Panatag Shoal despite the release last July of the international arbitration ruling favoring the Philippines in the case it filed against China. 

Incomplete information

Lorenzana was earlier quoted as saying that the president seemed to be misinformed about the joint Philippine-US military exercise.

During Friday's forum, Lorenzana said, “I think the word misinformed is actually not the correct one. I used that word too quickly. The correct word would be he did not get the correct information or the complete information."

“If you look at it from the perspective of somebody who is just watching the exercises, that would appear so,” Lorenzana said.

He said Philippine military personnel do not consider such exercises as a “waste of time.”

“We get something,” Lorenzana said, explaining that the benefits Filipino forces receive were not only material but also experiential as military exercises provide Filipinos with additional technical know-how.

He said that disaster response was “embedded in our exercises with the Americans.”

Lorenzana said that after the Philippine military's exposure to foreign disaster response methods, “the reaction time for addressing calamities [became] automatic and quick."

Lorenzana said that he was one of those who helped organize the first-ever US-Philippine military exercise way back in 1991.

“I was a captain of the Philippine military,” he said, adding “I was one of those who planned this exercise.” —NB, GMA News