We are grappling with so many problems. Inflation has gone up to record levels jacking up prices of almost everything that we buy. And depending on who one talks to, there is a prevailing rice shortage but people in the government deny this saying that the shortage is artificial.
One thing that is undeniable, however, is that the price of a kilo of rice is up. If indeed the so-called rice shortage is artificial, the government must prove this by arresting those people hoarding the commodity and charging them in court. Unless this is done, the rice shortage will continue to be a problem to those people who eat nothing but rice every day.
Because oil prices in the world market continue to go up, pump prices of gasoline have also gone up astronomically. Yet, our callous economic managers still want to implement TRAIN 2. What they should do is make tax collection more efficient instead of imposing new taxes on the already overburdened and suffering citizenry.
As for the NFA, what is needed for the agency is a logistics person because the work is essentially a problem of logistics. What we are seeing that the NFA is doing is not encouraging. If the current problem is rice shortage, the NFA should try to see to it that rice is made available to the public and worry about debts later.
There are other problems as well. The amnesty of Senator Antonio Trillanes has just been revoked by the President which will certainly trigger another legal battle reminiscent of the Sereno case.
Our arms procurement program is also becoming a concern because we are now procuring arms from new sources aside from our traditional suppliers which will have a long-term effect on our national security. Since our country does not have an armament industry, we have to rely on other countries to provide our armed forces with the armaments that we need to defend ourselves.
For decades, we have relied on our treaty ally, the United States for all our arms requirement. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, ships, planes, helicopters, and small arms have been mostly sourced from the United States. Even our military doctrines and culture are basically patterned after the US military which is hardly surprising since we were their only colony. Even the 12 fighter jets we got from South Korea was licensed from a US company which had to give its permission in order for us to be able to purchase the planes.
All these, however, abruptly changed after July 1, 2016 when President Duterte assumed office. Since the President does not seem to like the US, the country has diversified its arms procurement. China has already transferred some small arms and crew served weapons to us. Russia has also done so. Russia has even proposed to the government the putting up of a joint manufacturing facility to make the world famous AK47 Kalashnikov assault rifle which is the favorite rifle of guerrilla fighters the world over because it is cheap and easy to maintain. Just over a week ago, our Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana went to Moscow to look at the possibility of acquiring submarines from Russia. While countries would prefer to limit their arms inventory from one or two suppliers for easy maintenance and simplicity in the procurement process, there is now the possibility that we will have a military with armaments sourced from many countries.
Our treaty ally the US, probably sensing this shift in our arms procurement, recently proposed to sell attack helicopters and the improved version of the F16 flown by many Air Forces throughout the world. But before it could get off the ground, President Duterte shot it down with the remarks that what we need are helicopters for insurgency operations and not fighter jets.
Our military establishment also came out with the statement that F16s are very expensive to operate basically in support of the statement of the President which is a little puzzling because our Air Force has always wanted F16s for our fighter requirements. Maybe things have changed and our Air Force has other and better ideas.
The President has also just issued a statement in Israel that henceforth, our military will only procure arms from Israel especially intelligence gathering equipment. What other arms that will be procured from Israel, was not mentioned by the President.
The biggest arms procurement deal that we are now working on and studying is where to buy the two submarines that the President has approved for acquisition. All the original Asean members and Vietnam have submarines. As usual, we are the only country left without any submarines. This procurement must be studied carefully as I am sure our Navy must be doing by now.
What should be our primary considerations? The price? Capability? Judging from what has already been published in the open media, it would seem to me that affordability is the primary consideration. This is probably the reason that the first countries visited were South Korea and Russia. But if we are talking of diesel submarines, the countries with the best technologies in this area are probably Japan, France, and Germany. The US is not among them anymore because it has forsaken diesel in favor of nuclear submarines.
In the end, we will almost certainly buy the submarines from the country that will give us the best deal with the money available to us which means that we will not necessarily be acquiring the best there is out there in the market. More importantly, however, we have to analyze carefully whether procuring arms from multiple sources is a wise thing to do.
