Military modernization: a pipe dream
A combat utility helicopter carrying boxes of relief supplies lands in an isolated community of Sitio New Dahican in Brgy. Old Macopa, Manay, Davao Oriental. The Philippine Air Force took part in the relief operation to areas affected by floods and land slides in the Davao Region last February 21, 2024. Photo taken from Philippine Air Force Facebook page.
By Manuel Mogato | Date 02-25-2024
MANILA — The Philippines’ ambitious plan to play catch up with its Southeast Asian peers in terms of military equipment appears to be a pipe dream.
For one, it plans to spend nearly ₱2 trillion in the next ten years to acquire four squadrons of multi-role fighters and two conventional submarines, guided-missile frigates, and shore-to-ship missiles to expand its anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities in the face of rising tensions in the disputed waters in the South China Sea.
That means the Philippines has to allocate nearly ₱200 billion every year for its military modernization budget.
But that is almost as big as the defense budget for next year at ₱280 billion. The Marcos administration has only ₱55 billion for its military modernization for 2025. It is short of ₱145 billion to achieve its goal of funding a modernization program to build a minimum credible defense posture.
Since the 1990s, the government has had big plans for the military but is short on cash to implement the modernization program.
After the United States was kicked out from its two large overseas military bases in Subic and Clark, the Philippines laid naked in terms of external defense as its Armed Forces was primarily a domestic force to quell two persistent insurgencies from Maoist-led rebels and Muslim separatists.
It has a large fleet of World War II-vintage warships with limited endurance at sea patrols with no missile capabilities. The biggest guns are a 5-inch naval cannon.
The Air Force has Vietnam War-vintage fighters and combats utility helicopters. It also has antiquated radar systems and no ground-based air defense system.
In short, the Philippines has a pathetic Armed Forces that struggled to defeat rebel groups in the country.
Fidel Ramos, an army general who rose to the presidency in 1992, was forced to build up an external defense Armed Forces, pushing Congress to pass a military modernization program in 1995 when the economy was growing under a more politically stable environment.
Congress passed a law, a 15-year plan to spend ₱150 billion to upgrade military capabilities long neglected because of over-reliance on the US to provide for its external defense.
However, the lawmakers had only agreed to invest only ₱50 billion in a military trust fund separate from the annual defense budget.
Before Ramos ended his term, the Philippines was hit by a financial crisis that swept the region, delaying the military modernization program.
Ramos’ successors – Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – did very little to modernize the Armed Forces as the movie action hero-turned-politician was preoccupied with fighting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in a full-scale war in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.
The real money for military modernization came under the Arroyo administration, allocating ₱5 billion in the annual budget, increasing it to ₱25 billion a year in her last years in office.
However, the budget for the modernization program was insufficient to acquire brand-new equipment. Thus, the government spent refurbished combat utility helicopters, UH-1H, from Singapore and the United States.
Little support was given by the United States even though the Philippines was designated as a major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country in 2003.
Washington withheld military aid after Arroyo pulled out a token 50-member peacekeeping unit in Iraq as well as its worsening human rights record in the second half of her administration.
It was former president Benigno Aquino III who started an honest-to-goodness modernization program after he nudged Congress to pass another three-phased 15-year military modernization law in 2012. This time, lawmakers agreed to fund a ₱300 billion modernization plan.
Under the first phase, from 2013 to 2018, the Aquino government listed 53 modernization projects, but only 33 projects were completed worth ₱97.09 billion.
Aquino left behind 20 more projects worth ₱46.7 billion.
Rodrigo Duterte was more ambitious, revising the military modernization program, listing 96 projects worth ₱425.9 billion under the second horizon plan from 2018 to 2023.
However, Duterte’s accomplishments were dismal, completing only 13 projects. The pending 83 projects left behind by Duterte were worth ₱402 billion.
In short, Marcos has to complete 103 projects worth ₱332 billion under the first and second phases before he could start the third phase from 2023 to 2028, his last year in office.
In 2023, the military had planned to spend ₱40 billion a year for the next eight years under its modernization program. But that would be short of the ₱332 billion needed to complete the first two phases of the military modernization program.
When Gilberto Teodoro took over the defense department, the Marcos government again revised the plan, extending the third phase by another five years to 2034 and adding 37 projects worth close to ₱900 billion.
Together with the pending projects under phases one and two, the total military modernization plan would cost the government nearly ₱2 trillion for close to 140 projects.
For 2025, the ₱55 billion budget proposal for the military modernization program was the biggest in over 20 years. However, it may not be enough given the huge requirements needed to complete the third phase of the program.
Even if the Philippines spends at least 2 percent of its gross domestic product to fund the modernization program, it would also not be enough.
This year, Congress has approved a budget of ₱232 billion for defense, but 60 percent of the funds would go to salaries, allowances, and pensions of the 170,000-member Armed Forces and retirees.
It needs another ₱200 billion only to upgrade the military equipment to catch up with major Southeast Asian states and become truly a middle power state.