Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ M. Lacson intends to equip the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with more military technology as the future of warfare is going to get more digital and electronic.
Lacson, Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer, revealed this plan in a public forum held Monday at St. Anne College Lucena, Inc. where he and running mate Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ C. Sotto III campaigned together with four of their senatorial candidates and some local government officials.
The topic about strengthening the defensive capability of the AFP was touched upon when a concerned citizen from Quezon Province raised the West Philippine Sea (WPS) issue and asked how Lacson plans to address the persistent maritime conflict in the area when he gets elected as the 17th president.
Lacson, chairman of the Senate National Defense and Security committee, reiterated that as a matter of foreign policy, he would pursue a ‘balance of power’ in the region.
This means forging stronger alliances with military powerhouses on top of implementing in full Republic Act No. 10349 or the Revised AFP Modernization Act, which has a P75-billion funding.
The presidential aspirant, however, said that unlike in previous administrations where the Philippine Army (PA) gets a lion’s share of the AFP budget, he wants to give more funds to the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Air Force this time around to boost the naval and aerial assets of the country.
‘’Maybe it’s about time... Because our problem with insurgency has been reduced significantly, so why do we need so many infantries? Perhaps we need to shift already. Technology warfare is where battle lines are drawn these days,’’ pointed out.
‘’So, we will strengthen our Philippine Navy and our Philippine Air Force. Considering that we are an archipelagic country, I think we should reduce our need for infantries. We would rather increase the budget for our air force and the navy, so we can catch up at least,’’ he added.
Increasing the Philippines’ defensive capability went high up in the list of priorities of Lacson as a potential future president following the recent events in Ukraine where Russia launched a full-scale invasion.
He feared it might set a precedent for China to also conquer some of our territories.
‘’China is a huge country like Russia to Ukraine. When Ukraine went under attack, what happened? Russian President Vladimir Putin was expecting that (the war they waged) would be over in 48 hours,’’ he stressed.
'’But it did not happen) because we witnessed not only the patriotism but also the heroism of the Ukrainians led by their President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy. We have a similar situation in the West Philippine Sea,’’ he said.
Lacson, nevertheless, is hopeful the Philippines won’t suffer the same fate as Ukraine in the near future because it has a Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States, as well as defense agreements with other countries, which it can invoke in the event it is attacked by China or any foreign aggressor.
The Partido Reporma presidential candidate served as the author and sponsor of the Revised AFP Modernization Act, which was enacted in the 15th Congress.