Give up armed struggle, gov’t will stop buying weapons for internal security: Lorenzana

May 13, 2020

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the communist group should stop the armed struggle so the government will stop buying weapons for internal security operations.

Lorenzana made his statement after leftist group criticized the acquisition of attack helicopters for the Philippine Air Force.

"Someone from the leftist side said why are we going to buy ( helicopters)?  Why don't we just give (the money) to the people? I agree on that. Buying these helicopters is, I think, we'd rather give it to our people. However, I told them that they should also stop the armed struggle and we will also stop acquiring these kind of arms," he said.

"You're making trouble for 50 years. You want to stop us from acquiring weapons against you but you do not want to stop armed struggle," he added.

Lorenzana explained that the Philippine Air Force's acquisition of attack helicopters started around three to four years ago.

"This acquisition of attack helicopter started around 2016 or 2017. The Air Force acquired platforms, including Apache and Viper, and other helicopters from different countries," he said.

"Usually the United States... (give) go signal statement if they are going to sell. So the Air Force asked for details if were going to buy... It took them more than one year, I think almost two years before they responded," said Lorenzana.

"I think that's 1.5 billion to 2 billion (dollars) for six helicopters. The money allocated to purchase attack helicopters is only 13 billion(pesos). If we're going to buy helicopters with that price maybe we're only able to buy one or two. That's why we are also looking at other countries where we can buy more helicopters with the budget provided by our government," he added.

Lorenzana said the acquisition of the attack helicopters does not have any connection with the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and United States.

"This does not have any connection with the termination of the VFA, " he said. Robina Asido/DMS