''No indication'' if US missile system will be pulled out of Philippines: official
BAGUIO CITY -- There is "no indication" that the United States Army's Mid-Range Capability (MRC) missile system will be pulled out of the Philippines, a senior government official said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it "could remain" in the Philippines depending on the discussion between the Philippines and the United States.
"The pull out will depend on discussions from both the Philippines and the United States. So far there is no indication of any pull out... that weapon system could remain here...," the senior government source said.
Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. said the military has no information whether the MRC will be extended or withdrawn in September.
"I have no information on that," Brawner said during a press conference with US Indo-Pacom (Indo-Pacific) Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo Jr. after the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board meeting at the Philippine Military Academy on Thursday.
Paparo explained that presence of the MRC in the Philippines "is a part of the constant evolution of United States Army formations in its multi-domain operations and multi-domain task forces."
Aside from the deployment of MRC in the Philippines, Paparo said that the United States continues to innovate within its formation.
"We are going to continue to innovate and I'm not going to mention the specific weapon systems but we are going to continue to innovate within our formations," he said when asked for other modern weapon systems that the US expects to bring into the Philippines.
"And so not just the multi-domain task forces within the United States Army but the Marine Littoral Regiments within the United States Marine Corps who will also be part of Balikatan," he added.
Paparo noted that "the whole shape of the entire force is all shifting towards multi-domain and that is the ability of all formations to affect events in all domains."
"This is the future way of war. We, the armed forces, we, the United States military are in a constant state of experimentation and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the armed forces of the Philippines and we are in an open sharing environment and such is the case with Balikatan and this is the state of the alliance," he said.
The missile issue was discussed in the July bilateral meeting between Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Vientiane, Laos.
Wang said if the Philippines introduces the US intermediate missile system, it will create regional tension and confrontation, triggering an arms race, which is totally not in line with the interests and aspirations of the Filipino people, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Recently, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lian Jian said the Philippines should remove the US missile system.
In a previous interview, Col. Louie Dema-ala, Philippine Army public affairs office chief. said that the US Army may pull out the MRC depending on the assessment of the Salaknib exercise that is expected to end in September.
However, Dema-ala said the use of MRC in military exercises in the Philippines may also be extended depending on the result of the MDB-SEB meeting between the United States and the Philippines. DMS
