MANILA, Philippines – Inihayag ni Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. nitong Biyernes, Hulyo 10, na dapat ilaan ng pamahalaan ang pondo nito sa depensa ng hanggang 4% ng Gross Domestic Product (GDP) sa nagpapatuloy na tensyon sa West Philippine Sea.
“We definitely need to realign. It’s not ‘might.’ We need to because the budget is a finite item, right? And so, more for one means less for another,” ani Teodoro.
“All I’m saying is we need to increase. And there are several ways. We need to ramp up to at least 2 to 3 to 4 percent of GDP,” dagdag pa niya.
Ayon sa Defense chief, ang mga kalapit na bansa ng Pilipinas ay naglaan ng kanilang defense spending ng hanggang 5%.
“Indonesia, which is not a claimant country and without any threat, has recently acquired 47 Rafale fighters, the latest variants of Rafale fighters,” aniya.
“Deterrence means more than commitment. It means actual spending, and it means lessening an entitlement to the public and putting these entitlements into building a credible and resilient force,” paliwanag pa ni Teodoro.
“That is why if we fail to cascade the value of standing up in the most granular of terms and public’s awareness of the elements necessary to build a credible deterrence without a free rider problem as economists want to state, a free rider problem here taken to extreme probably is the worst enemy that we have in our journey to building a credible deterrent posture. And perhaps that is what strategies must articulate,” pagpapatuloy nito.
Sa kawalan ng commitment, sinabi ni Teodoro na ang bansa “cannot build a credible deterrent posture which at the end of the day is necessary for us to assert our rights.” RNT/JGC
