Joint military and civic exercises with US forces pegged at 258 for 2017

From the Philippine News Agency (Nov 23): Joint military and civic exercises with US forces pegged at 258 for 2017

Joint military and civic exercises with US military forces in 2017 will only hit the 258 mark or five lower than the 263 proposed.

These figures include even small units and civic military operations.

This was stressed by outgoing Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Ricardo Visaya Wednesday.

"(These) exercises will be more focused on counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, engineering civic actions, so that will be in line with the pronouncements and the guidance of our President to the AFP," he said.

Earlier, the Department of National Defense (DND) recommended to President Rodrigo Duterte a re-focusing of bilateral activities on command post exercises, tabletop exercises, staff exercises and simulation exercises and training; maintenance of bilateral humanitarian and disaster response and counter-terrorism exercises; and giving focus on non-traditional security concerns such as counter-narcotics and transnational crimes.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=942700