MANILA, Philippines—Philippine and Indonesian police are finalizing plans for joint training operations on the two nation’s maritime borders, the Philippine National Police said Saturday.

PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. Nicanor Bartolome said the training operations would focus on building closer coordination between the two police forces against crimes in the high seas like piracy, human trafficking and smuggling of illegal drugs.

“The joint operations will be conducted on common borders and sea lanes. Hopefully, these plans will be finalized soon,” Bartolome told the Inquirer

PNP Director General Avelino Razon said the operations were part of bilateral efforts to combat transnational crimes and terrorism.

In the just concluded Phil-Indo Police Joint Committee Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, the two agencies agreed to hold more frequent meetings and joint training programs.

Panels from the PNP and Indonesian National Police (INP) adopted a schedule of joint activities for the remaining months of 2008 and early 2009.

Joint activities lined up for this year include the Phil-Indo Police Sub-Committee Meeting on Operations in September in Indonesia, a Phil-Indo Police Workshop-Command Post Exercise in November, and training exercises similar to the joint PNP-INP Trainors Training held in Zamboanga City in November 2007.

Razon also said both panels had agreed to hold quarterly joint committee meetings to be hosted alternately by the PNP and INP. The next joint committee quarterly meeting will be held in Cebu City in July.

The 18-man PNP delegation that attended the Joint Committee Meeting on April 20-23 was headed by Deputy Director General Emmanuel Carta, the PNP deputy chief for operations.

“The meeting’s purpose was to strengthen intelligence and information sharing,” Razon said.

In 2005, the PNP and INP forged a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Preventing and Combating Transnational Crimes.

Since the 2005 PNP-INP accord, both police forces have formulated standard procedures for joint police operations, including the conduct of hot pursuit operations along maritime borders and guidelines in the hand over of criminal suspects.

Currently, the PNP is cooperating with its Indonesian counterpart in developing a DNA databank of known members of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic militant network Jemaah Islamiyah by assisting Indonesian police in acquiring DNA profiles of JI members known to be operating in the Philippines.