New defense ecozone to rise in Bataan

A military-industrial complex will soon rise in Bataan province to encourage investors to establish strategic industries in the area, help sustain the military’s modernization program and spur new economic activity in the process.

The Government Arsenal signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan declaring the Arsenal’s 370-hectare Defense Industrial Estate in Barangay Lamo, Limay town, as the free port’s newest expansion area.

The free port is 22 nautical miles from Metro Manila across Manila Bay and only 45 kilometers, or 63 km by road, from Olongapo City and the adjacent Subic free port where the Navy has established its new home for newly acquired capital ships.

The Arsenal currently maintains and operates 124 buildings and structures over 70 ha of the industrial estate.

The MOA was signed on Monday by acting Arsenal director, retired Maj. Gen. Arnold Rafael Depakakibo, and free port administrator Emmanuel Pineda at the Department of National Defense headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

The agreement allows the Arsenal to link the industrial estate to the free port which will help develop the estate’s production capabilities, production of basic weapons, ammunition and other munitions with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police as captured markets.

This also authorizes the free port to include the industrial estate in its administration of incentives as well as exclusively market and transact with investors within the expansion area.Joint venture

The joint venture will help sustain the military’s modernization program and develop its self-reliance programs, which aim to make the country less dependent on imports for the defense requirements.

The Revised AFP Modernization Program is currently at the last leg of the second horizon set from 2018 to 2022. The third and last horizon is set for 2023 to 2027.

Defense equipment manufacturers have been showing interest in setting up operations in the country as soon as industrial zones are put up, according to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza), which supervised the Limay free port before its transfer to the Office of the President in 2010.

Peza plans to transform military reservation areas in Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City, Camp Evangelista in Cagayan de Oro City, and in Maguindanao into defense industrial complexes to manufacture military weapons and equipment.

The House of Representatives in February last year approved on third and final reading House Bill No. 8212, or the Special Defense Economic Zone (Spedez) Act, which establishes a defense industrial zone in the Arsenal’s 370-ha estate be run by a new independent government body called the Spedez Authority.

The Senate, however, was not able to pass its own version of the bill.

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