P70B in contracts up for grabs in AFP

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of National Defense (DND) has identified 138 military contracts worth P70 billion that the government will enter into in the next five years to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

These contracts include the acquisition of fighter jets, warships and modern equipment to boost the depleted military assets especially of the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Navy.

“Our main responsibility is to ensure the approval and signature of the contracts for all the 138 projects for the AFP modernization and capability upgrade program not later than July 31, 2012,” Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said during the launch of the Defense Acquisitions System (DAS) at the DND headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo on Friday.

He later told reporters they aimed to finalize at least half of these contracts by July and the rest not later than November.

“We have to finish this by July this year, the worst case scenario is by November. If at least by July we attain at least a 50 percent (completion), that’s a good batting average,” Gazmin said.

DND and AFP teams will fly to Italy and Spain shortly to assess the military hardware and equipment offered for sale.

Similar assessment missions will be sent to the US, South Korea, France and the United Kingdom.

“We’re looking at what is available rather than ordering them to be built three years from now. What will we do between now and the three years?” Gazmin said.

He said they were looking at acquiring the hardware through government-to-government contracts.

“We have the funds,” he insisted, explaining that the contracts will not be entered into at the same time but over a period of time until 2016.

The contracts were the product of a strategic planning, capability assessment and resource management system based on the DND’s Defense System of Management.

“We have considered both our problem with internal security operations and our territorial defense since we saw that our territory problem became active last year so we have to address that,” Gazmin said, referring to the Spratlys dispute in the West Philippine Sea.