The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) confirmed the arrival of the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) of the United States on Monday, a week before the formal opening of the 40th Balikatan exercise.

"The NMESIS, I will confirm that it's already in country. I will not say where, but it is going to participate. It's going to be part of the exercises. And that's it, okay... instead of talking about the capabilities, you see the events. So the new event that we have is the integrated air and missile defense," he said.

NMESIS is a mountable, ground-based anti-ship missile launcher. The deployment of NMESIS was first announced by US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth during his visit in the Philippines last month.

"So that's a new event and we are going to be utilizing our air defense capabilities, together with the United States. So that's the new event that we have," he added.

Logico said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. "is very interested in watching" the air and integrated air and missile defense exercise that will be held in Zambales on April 27.

"We briefed President Marcos two weeks ago, yes and he has given us the green light for the entire exercise, all of the events. And yes, he is very interested in watching one of the events," he said.

Logico added that the United States Army will also use the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) also known as the Typhon missile system during this year's Balikatan exercise.

"It was also used in the previous exercise and it will be used for this exercise as well," he said of the MRC.

Logico said around 14,000 troops from US and Philippine forces will join the exercises, including 5,000 AFP soldiers and around 9,000 US forces. He also mentioned an increase in the number of observers.

"We have an increase in the number of participants with the Australian Defense Force, I think they're around 200 from the ADF. We are going to have active observers coming from the JSDF, the Japanese Self-Defense Force," he said.

"What was also not mentioned is that we now have additional participants in our international observers program. We have additional countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, and I think Colombia," he added.

According to Logico, major military assets that will be deployed by the AFP to join the Balikatan include FA-50 fighter jets of the Philippine Air Force, the newly acquired artillery 155s of the Philippine Army, Philippine Navy frigates and landing docks and others.

US Marine Corps Col. Doug Krugman, staff officer of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, one of senior exercise planners for Balikatan 2025 said the United States Air Force will use F-16s alongside Marine Corps F-18 fighters, the MV-22 Ospreys, the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, ELMADS, which will be part of the Integrated Air Missile Defense Live Fire and other supporting arms, Himars, Stinger, Avenger Air Defense Systems. Robina Asido/DMS