'Balikatan' gives PHL, American forces mutual trust, confidence -- AFP chief

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 4): 'Balikatan' gives PHL, American forces mutual trust, confidence -- AFP chief

Filipino and American forces have formed mutual trust and confidence with each other through the annual "Balikatan" exercises.

This was stressed by Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Hernando DCA Iriberri during the opening ceremonies for this year's military exercises Monday.

"Every year for over three decades now, the Philippines stands shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and partners. Learning, sharing and growing our common strengths through capability development and capacity building toward our shared vision," he added.

"Through this annual Balikatan exercise, our alliance and partnerships have become a naturally-formed rock of trust and confidence. Through well planned training exchanges, we have not only enhanced our capabilities to address threats and other security concerns as individual nations, but more importantly as partners progressively built and strengthened our linked nations for cooperative action to address common challenges," Iriberri stressed.

Aside from US and Philippines military, this year's "Balikatan" exercise will be made more fruitful and dynamic with the return of the Australian Defense Forces, who are joining the US and the AFP for the third time, he added.

"We welcome the participation for the first time of the members of the Japan Self Defense Forces as observers in this exercise. And we are much pleased to see the delegations in our 'Balikatan' 2016 international observers program from eight other countries - Brunei, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam," the AFP chief stressed.

Iriberri said these multinational forces were invited to increase multilateral collaboration and provide a common platform for regional engagement on development of partner nation military capabilities.

"And we are only too glad in the quality of their response," he pointed out.

And with the US and Philippine forces getting ever closer in mapping out and executing the training plans for this "Balikatan" 2016 as part of a broader Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board engagement, Iriberri said the growing partnership and alliance between the two nation is expected to move toward truly ironclad commitment, capability development and even in security relations.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=872961