US air power on display at Balikatan

CROW VALLEY – US aircraft dropped bombs and marines tore forward under artillery fire in war games here yesterday, weeks after the allies signed a defense deal against a backdrop of flaring Chinese tensions with its neighbors.

The live rounds made a dull thud and kicked up dust as they rained down on a dry riverbed at the start of the hour-long maneuvers involving about 100 American and 200 Filipino marines.

“We’re training to take over a key enemy position,” US Marines spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jay de la Rosa told AFP from a nearby ridge observation point, as F/A-18 and A-10 aircraft unloaded their payloads.

Artillery shells also poured down from nearby hilltops before V-22 Osprey aircraft and conventional military helicopters made paratroop drops of marines on the simulated battlefield, later joined by colleagues aboard armored vehicles.

“It’s a maritime security scenario,” Filipino Navy Captain Annaleah Cazcarro said.

“We don’t have a target country,” she emphasized.

Thursday’s maneuvers came at the end of 10 days of annual war games between the US and its close ally the Philippines, involving 5,500 troops and this year addressing security issues in the flashpoint South China Sea.

China is engaged in increasingly tense rows with both the Philippines and Vietnam over the sea, which is believed to harbor vast oil and gas resources and which China claims almost in its entirety.

Yesterday’s event was held at Crow Valley in Tarlac, a former gunnery range for American forces that were stationed at two nearby large military installations until 1992.

The allies signed a deal last month to give US forces greater access to Filipino bases in the former US colony.

The United States has said it does not take a position on the territorial disputes, but has criticized what it said were “provocative” acts by China to assert its claims.

US President Barack Obama, in a state visit to Manila in late April, also made an “ironclad” pledge to defend the Philippines, with which it has a mutual defense treaty, if attacked.

The Philippines has released photographs to back its claim that China is reclaiming land on a disputed reef in the South China Sea, in an apparent effort to build an airstrip.

In Vietnam, anti-China riots on Thursday triggered by the communist neighbors’ own territorial dispute left a Chinese worker dead and 100 injured.

The Chinese claims to the South China Sea also overlap those of Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

The latest military exercises between the Philippines and the US, dubbed as 30th Balikatan, will end today with officials claiming that the drills boosted the defense ties between the two countries.

The closing ceremony for the bilateral exercise will be held at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City at 9 a.m.

Among the key personalities expected to attend the event are Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, US embassy Chargé d’ Affaires Brian Goldbeck, Armed Forces chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, Philippine exercise director Maj. Gen. Emeraldo Magnaye and US deputy exercise director Maj. Gen. Richard Simcock.

Cazcarro, public affairs officer for the exercise, said the training boosted the interoperability of the two militaries.

“There are improvements when it comes to interoperability and of course the crisis planning of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and on how to react to maritime security (situations),” Cazcarro said in a phone interview.

Around 3,000 Filipino soldiers and 2,500 American military personnel participated in Balikatan 2014, which started last May 5.

This year’s drills focused on maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster response. – Alexis Romero