Philippine military eyeing higher intensity exercises with Australia

November 14, 2017

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is eyeing to have higher intensity exercises with its Australian counterpart, a spokesman said Tuesday.

"What we have now is the pioneering training and what we are planning is like what the chief of staff said yesterday to step this up of course. But the magnitude and extent, if it is too big ,will have to go through the process where it should be approved by our Congress," Col. Edgard Arevalo, AFP Public Affairs chief said.

"The direction is towards collaboration, cooperation and agreement, especially on the fight against terrorism," Arevalo added.

Arevalo said the extent of training the Philippines is planning with Australia in the future is still have to be discussed.

"We don't yet know the extent but that will be discuss because we have status of forces agreement I think with Australia we have that, so we will study that," he said.

Arevalo mentioned urban warfare training is among the exercises the AFP and its Australian counterpart are planning in the future.

"This is military operation in urban terrain. That will be the center and we will see in what areas we can help each other like the intelligence, information sharing and all others platforms," he said.

"It also includes Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) but definitely we can only have assistance. They cannot participate in actual combat," he added. Robina Asido/DMS