By MARTIN A. SADONGDONG
The government is set to receive precision-guided munitions worth $18 million or around P870 million from the United States for the utilization of the military, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.
Lorenzana said he discussed the details of the military assistance from Washington, a long-time ally of the government, when he met US Charge d’Affaires John Law in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City last week.
“They have given us $18-million worth of military equipment arriving next month,” he said. He did not elaborate on the details of the program.
The Defense chief said the smart bombs will boost the capability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in dealing with various external and internal security threats, especially in its counter-terrorism efforts.
“These are precision-guided munitions which you can drop (at a hostile target) with pinpoint accuracy,” he explained.
The acquisition of the precision-guided munitions is seen to greatly increase the accuracy of the military in conducting airstrikes when the need calls for it.
It was evident during the Marawi City siege in 2017 where around a dozen soldiers were killed in an airstrike after Air Force pilots were forced to use ordinary and less accurate bombs to purge Daesh-inspired terrorists who tried to establish a caliphate in the country.
Lorenzana had admitted that the military ran out of precision-guided munitions during the early days of the five-month long war.
Aside from the military assistance program, Lorenzana and Law also talked about COVID-19 pandemic-related assistance, the status of the two countries’ Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), the foreign policy of US with the election of a new president, and the Philippines’ conflict with China in the West Philippine Sea.
