PA teaches its best practices to Sri Lankan military officers

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 19): PA teaches its best practices to Sri Lankan military officers

In line with its efforts to foster military cooperation with other allied nations, the Philippine Army (PA) shared its best practices in a command briefing, open forum and interaction with student-officers of the Defense Services Command and Staff College (DSCSC) of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

The Sri Lankan military delegation was headed by Commodore AARK Perera, the Chief Instructor of Naval Wing of the DSCSC.

The group also made a courtesy call on PA commanding general Lt. Gen. Eduardo M. Año.

Col. Jose C. Faustino Jr., PA Education and Training assistant chief-of-staff, warmly welcomed the Sri Lankan visitors.

“We are indeed honored with your visit to the Philippine Army for this is a great opportunity for us to foster good relationship between our Armed Forces,” he said.

“Your effort to deepen our defense cooperation is well-appreciated as this will further broaden our understanding of our respective military systems, and can serve as an avenue to exchange views, experiences and best practices between our respective defense establishments," Faustino stressed.

The 19-member delegation from the DSCSC of Sri Lanka arrived in the Philippines for their Overseas Study Tour last Aug. 12.

The team is also expected to visit the Army's Training and Doctrine Command.

The Overseas Study Tour aims to develop mutual understanding and foster good relations through defense diplomacy with other nations. It is also an assessed activity for the DSCSC students in their Strategy Module with the broad theme to evaluate and analyze the elements of national power of the visited country in comparison with Sri Lanka.

It can be noted that the Philippine Army serves as a model to other armies in the ASEAN region, particularly in its humanitarian assistance and disaster response capabilities.

The DSCSC is the most prestigious and the highest seat of military education in Sri Lanka. It sets out to train officers in basic command and staff techniques, and develop their intellectual attributes to cope with their future appointments and the challenges that comes with it.

International engagements like this is continuously being pursued by the Philippine Army.

Under the Army Operating Concept, the Philippine Army, as a joint-ready and combined arms force, "will operate in a joint, inter-agency, intergovernmental and multi-national setting.

As such, the Army will endeavor to cooperate and collaborate with joint force, government and civilian partners locally and internationally.

The PA, as part of the joint force, must be fully interoperable with other services in order to ensure unified action among joint forces.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=794891