Duterte “misinformed” about value of war games with the US: defense chief
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said President Rodrigo Duterte has been “misinformed” about the benefits of the Armed Forces of the Philippines from joint exercises with the United States forces.
“Our president was misinformed because it seems that the information that reached him is not complete,” he said in a text message to defense reporters Thursday .
“Maybe the DND and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have failed to provide enough information and this is what we are going to address in the coming days,” added Lorenzana.
On Tuesday, the 30 th amphibious landing exercises began between the Philippines and the United States. It could be the last such activity if Duterte pursues his move to halt war games and review the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.
Lorenzana stressed Filipino troops have gained a lot of benefits from joint exercises with the US forces contrary to the statement of Duterte only American forces benefited.
“Based on the information that we get from the officials of the general headquarters and Army we have benefited from it,” he said.
Lorenzana said some of the benefits are the exposure of Filipino troops to modern equipment, system, tactics and battle concepts of US forces.
“The training on humanitarian assistance and disaster readiness (HADR) is also an important knowledge that helps us to immediately react to calamities,” he said.
Lorenzana said the US forces helped the AFP and the Philippine government during relief and rehabilitation in Tacloban during Typhoon Yolanda in 2013..
“Because of close military-to-military relations the US and AFP have coordinated easily to send their ship and helicopter to Tacloban right after the onslaught of Haiyan last November 2013. As a matter of fact they are the first responders,” he said.
“Every exercise, there are joint civic action projects that are being done in areas that need school houses, multipurpose buildings and basketball courts,” Lorenzana added.
Lorenzana noted that as part of activities US and Filipino forces also deploy medical and dental teams to help the people in rural areas.
“One of the important parts of the training is what we called the Table Top exercise where the higher officials learned to make a plan and how the plan will be executed,” he said.
“This is where they learned to analyse a national problem and made a delicate decision about national security,” he added. Robina Asido/DMS
