PH, South Africa eye defense agreement

The Philippines and South Africa are planning to formalize their defense cooperation through a memorandum of agreement, the Department of National Defense (DND) said Tuesday.

In a statement, the DND said Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. met with his South African counterpart Angelina Motshekga on the sidelines of the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2025 on Monday.

“The meeting highlighted ongoing efforts to formalize defense cooperation between the Philippines and South Africa through a Memorandum of Agreement on Cooperative Activities in the Field of Defense,” the DND said.

According to the DND, this will be the first defense agreement between the Philippines and South Africa.

Teodoro tackled potential areas of cooperation between the two countries, such as military medicine and safety of seafarers. 

The Philippines and South Africa reaffirmed their commitment to push for international peace and security, as well as promote multilateral cooperation, the DND said.

Meanwhile, Teodoro also met with his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu-Back and discussed areas to further deepen cooperation in response to common regional security challenges on the sidelines of the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2025.

“Discussions focused on enhancing collaboration in logistics, technological exchange, defense industry cooperation, under the framework of the 2015 PH-ROK Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Field of Defense,” the DND said.

Teodoro is slated to speak at the plenary session of the Seoul Defense Dialogue 2025 about “Mitigating Geopolitical Rivalries and Restoring Strategic Stability.”

Meanwhile, during the ceremony for the United Nations Command’s (UNC) 75th anniversary at The Westin Josun Seoul, Teodoro reminded concerned countries of collective responsibility amid “the danger of major powers carving up the world into spheres of influence.”

“...The threats here have not abated and continue to persist and perhaps even increase both in magnitude and change in character,” he said.

“And being here in Seoul, we are reminded of the fragility of peace, our collective responsibility to keep it alive, and the danger of major powers carving up the world into spheres of influence, as was just announced in a neighboring country, where there was a call for the reshaping of the international order into a multipolar transactional one,” he added. —VAL, GMA Integrated News