EDITORIAL - Tragic consequences

Here is another reason to speed up efforts to develop the country’s credible defense capability: preventing further loss of lives among those who are tasked to keep the nation safe. Last Friday morning, another trainer plane of the Philippine Air Force crashed off La Monja Island in Cavite. The Warrior Cessna had taken off from Sangley Point in Cavite before 7 a.m. before witnesses saw it plunge into the sea. As of yesterday, the two PAF pilots, Maj. Neil Tumaneng and 1Lt. Michael Arugay, had not yet been found.

PAF aircraft are needed not just for fighting enemies of the state but also for relief and rescue operations. Patrol aircraft are also needed as much as patrol boats to keep out intruders and uphold Philippine sovereignty over its territory.

Yet investment in credible defense has received low priority, with the national leadership seeing no need to fill the security vacuum created when the country shut down the US bases in Clark Field and Subic Bay in 1992. The modernization program for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, belatedly started in 1996, has fallen woefully short of expectations. Compounding the lack of investments in new PAF aircraft, many of the old ones have crashed, with a high incidence of mishaps involving trainer planes.

The ongoing standoff with China in Panatag or Scarborough Shoal has brought home the reality of how weak the Philippine military has become, and has given urgency to AFP modernization efforts. With AFP priorities shifting from internal security to territorial defense, the government has announced plans to acquire additional PAF aircraft. This should move quickly beyond the planning stage and political rhetoric. In the past years a standing joke about the PAF is that it is all air and no force. The joke would be hilarious if it didn’t have such tragic consequences.