THE 19-day joint military exercise of Manila and Washington ending May 10 involving more than 16,000 troops – the greatest demonstration of allied muscle – has a clear message.
The annual drills – dubbed Balikatan or “shoulder to shoulder – is concentrated in the northern and western parts of the archipelago country, near the potential flashpoints of Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Interestingly, more than 250 contingents from the Australian Defense Force and, for the first time in Balikatan’s history, the French Navy will also join the exercises.
The Philippine Coast Guard will also join Balikatan for the first time following several confrontations between its vessels and the China Coast Guard, which patrols reefs off the Philippines’ coast.
The joint drills involve a simulation of an armed recapture of an island in Palawan, the nearest major Philippine landmass to the hotly disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
The same exercise will be held in the northern provinces of Cagayan and Batanes, both less than 300 kilometers from Taiwan.
Like last year, there will be a sinking of a vessel off the northern province of Ilocos Norte.
Other training will concern information warfare, maritime security, and integrated air and missile defense.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a key waterway for international trade, and also considers self-ruled Taiwan to be part of its territory.
“We’re going to show the people of the Philippines and the world that we’ve gotten better and we’re never going to stop doing so,” Lt. Gen. William Jurney, commander of US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, said at the opening ceremony in Manila.
“When we get better the Philippines gets stronger, safer and more secure.”
Participants will execute a range of complex missions across domains, including maritime security, sensing and targeting, air and missile defense, dynamic missile strikes, cyber defense, and information operations.
The Philippine Navy, US Navy, and the French Navy will also conduct a Multilateral Maritime Exercise in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
We are confident the 2024 Balikatan Exercise will underscore the Philippines’ steadfast dedication to amplify interoperability and readiness by collaborating with its friends, partners, and treaty ally.
AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo S. Brawner Jr. said: “Together, we speed up our march towards enhancing our military capabilities for maritime security alongside honing other competencies in order to effectively address the dynamic challenges across all domains.”
We endorse Brawner’s idea that cooperation and military-to-military collaboration play vital roles in ensuring a safer global community for generations to come.
Balikatan 2024 includes exercises in protecting key terrain in Luzon and Palawan in support of territorial defense; rapidly moving long range, precision strike capabilities and using them in targeting simulated threats; tracking simulated air threats and targeting them with multiple air and missile defense systems; and integrating multilateral air and land platforms to increase awareness of the maritime security situation.
Washington and Manila are treaty allies and have deepened their defense cooperation since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos took office in 2022.
