PAF's FA-50 fighter jets escort PBBM's flight
The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has utilized two of its FA-50 fighter jets to escort the flight of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for an official visit to New York in the United States.
Lt. Gen. Connor Anthony Canlas Sr., PAF Commanding General, posted on his Facebook account a photo of one of the two FA-50 fighter jets flying beside a Philippine Air Lines (PAL) plane carrying the Commander-in-Chief as it left the country on Sunday, Sept. 18.
“The fighter jets escorted the Presidential flight in the country’s eastern front starting over Polilio Island all the way up to 200 nautical miles,” Col. Ma. Consuelo Castillo, PAF spokesperson, said Tuesday, Sept. 20.
“This is the first time that our FA-50s were able to escort out President on a foreign trip. During the earlier presidential trips, our fighter jets had been committed for priority patrol missions elsewhere that needed its urgent presence,” she added.
The PAF’s escort to Marcos Jr.'s flight lasted for a “few minutes.” After that, the two FA-50 fighter jets went for a regular maritime patrol to secure the country from unauthorized intrusions within the Philippine Air Defense Identification Zone (PADIZ), she noted.
“Considering that we have limited aircraft, our government’s priority is for our aircraft to be utilized for such urgent and critical missions. That’s why even in the brief fighter escort mission, we jibed it with the conduct of a maritime patrol,” Castillo said.
Marcos Jr. is on an official visit to New York to participate in the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). He was scheduled to speak in the high-level UN debate on Tuesday to discuss climate change, rule of law, and food security.
In the recent past, Castillo recalled that flight escorting had been done during the official trips of the late former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, but not during the time of Marcos Jr.’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
“That time (Duterte’s administration), the feedback to me is that it was not done ,” she said.
Escorting of presidential flights is “more than just a tradition” in the PAF as it is also an essential standard operating procedure (SOP) to clear and secure the air space for the arrival and departure of the President of the Republic and other visiting heads of state, according to Castillo. The said procedure is similarly practiced in other countries for added security of their presidential flights.