Teodoro requests a 6.6 percent increase in the 2025 defense budget

The Philippine Navy added two more Fast Attack Interdiction Crafts (FAICs)  on May 21, 2024, just in time for its 126th anniversary. Photo from the Philippine Navy. 

By Manuel Mogato | Date 09-25-2024

MANILA — Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr has requested a 6.6 percent increase in the 2025 defense budget to prepare for rising operations of additional vessels and aircraft to patrol the country’s vast maritime zones.

Teodoro said it needs more than 15 billion pesos to prepare three dry docks and extra hangers for two corvettes and 15 Black Hawk helicopters.

‘“We have prepared a 300 hectares naval base in Cebu for these vessels and upgraded our galvanized iron hangars to make it withstand powerful typhoons,” he told a congressional committee looking at the 254.1 billion 2025 defense budget.

He said the additional vessels and helicopters would increase the military’s maintenance and operating costs for next year.

About 95 percent of the 254.1 billion pesos allocated by the Marcos administration for defense would go to the Armed Forces, with the Philippine Navy getting the lion’s share in the fund increase.

The Navy will get 7.6 billion pesos, an 18 percent increase from last year’s allocation. The Air Force got a 10 percent increase of 4.6 billion pesos, and the Army a 1.4 percent increase or 1.4 billion pesos.

Teodoro said the country’s defense budget was about 1.8 percent of the gross domestic product, lower than the 2 to 3 percent of GDP in other Southeast Asian countries.

In Western European countries, the defense budget has increased to about 4 percent of GDP as they ramp up spending on equipment and logistics due to the prolonged war in Ukraine.

Teodoro said the conflict in Ukraine had affected the government’s manufacture of munitions as there was a global shortage of chemicals and other components in making small arms ammunition.

In the same congressional hearing, Teodoro said the country’s modernization fund was increased to 75 billion pesos next year, but the fund was not part of the 254.1 billion pesos defense budget.

The defense budget will rise to 333 billion pesos if the modernization fund and the 4 billion pesos pension fund are added.

However, only 50 billion pesos were funded, and the additional 25 billion pesos needed to be programmed.

About 96 percent of the 50 billion pesos modernization fund under the 2024 budget had been obligated.

Only about 13 billion pesos in the 2025 modernization fund could be used to acquire equipment because the rest had been obligated to pay annual amortization of 15 projects, including the three C-130J transport planes, the two long-range maritime patrol aircraft, 36 Black Hawk helicopters, two missile-guided frigates, and two corvettes.