There is no planned or ongoing joint naval exercise between the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines in the South China Sea (SCS), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said.

AFP Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. made the clarification on Monday, August 21, as he denied reports from Kyodo News that the Philippines is hosting a naval exercise between Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo in Manila.

“Actually ‘yung nabasa po natin doon sa Kyodo news na ‘yun ay bini-verify pa rin natin sa ating counterpart sa Japan, sa US, sa Australia. Kung mayroon man po silang mga activities na ganoon ay hindi po tayo informed (Actually, we are verifying that information we read from Kyodo News with our counterparts from Japan, US, and Australia. If they have activities like that, we are not informed),” Brawner said.

Citing unnamed sources, the Kyodo News reported that the supposed exercise will take place this Wednesday in SCS. It said Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force will deploy to Manila its largest destroyer, the JS Izumo; the Royal Australian Navy will send amphibious ship HMAS (His/Her Majesty's Australian Ship) Canberra; and the US Navy will field its amphibious assault ship USS America.

While it is true that the three ships are either headed or already docked in Manila, Brawner said that their visits are in no way connected to each other. 

The AFP chief said the Tokyo-based news outlet must have gotten wrong information about an ongoing bilateral exercise between the Philippines and Australia.

The Philippine Navy (PN) is conducting a bilateral exercise with counterparts from Australia called the Exercise Alon 2023 which kicked off last August 14 at the flight deck of HMAS Canberra in Darwin, Australia.

Exercise Alon is the first ever amphibious military exercise between the military forces from the Philippines and Australia.

The exercise involves multiple ships and aircraft from the AFP and Australian Defence Force (ADF). Approximately 1,200 servicemen from the ADF and 700 personnel from the AFP joined the exercise. There are also 150 participants from the US Marine Corps’ Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) who joined the drills and were integrated with Australia’s Amphibious Force.

From Australia, the training participants sailed to the Philippines onboard HMAS Canberra to conduct various field training exercises (FTX) in different locations in Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) based in Tarlac City and Western Command (WESCOM) based in Palawan.

Meanwhile, Japan’s JS Izumo will make a port call in Manila and hold a resupply and reprovision mission. The USS America, on the other hand, is “observing” the Alon exercise.

“Nandyan lang siya [USS America] nakabantay pero hindi naman sila nag-exercise na sabay-sabay. Kaya noong tinanong namin ‘yung Japan, ‘yung US at ‘yung Australia, pati sila confused eh ([USS America] is just there guarding but they did not hold an exercise. That’s why when we asked Japan, US and Australia, they are also confused),” Brawner said.

The AFP Chief also denied a report from Kyodo News that the Philippines “declined” to join the supposed drills. 

“Hindi po totoo ‘yun na nagdecline tayo (It’s not true that we declined [to join]),” Brawner said.

He even expressed interest for the Philippines to join US, Australia, Japan or any other allied countries if ever a multilateral exercise in the West Philippine Sea is organized in the future.

“Marami pa hong mga ganyang exercises in the future na gagawin tayo (We will conduct exercises like that in the future),” he added.