We need true fighter jets now

A while back, I wrote here against the plan of government to start negotiating for the purchase of several Italian planes for the Philippine Air Force, planes that are no match for the modern fighter squadrons owned by our neighbors in the increasingly volatile region.

 I am no military expert but I know enough to realize the folly of the government plan. As I pictured it in a previous article, it is like buying dozens of kitchen knives to our neighbor’s Armalite or AK-47. We may outnumber his gun with more knives but ours are knives just the same.

In other words, we can buy cheap, meaning more trainer planes that have no firepower, or we can go expensive but practical — fewer jets with enough firepower to make us no easy pushover and would make our neighbors think twice before doing anything foolish.

And I am very happy to be borne out only yesterday by an Amercian security think-tank, the Center for a New American Security. In a news story that carried its assessment, the center said the Philippines would need at least 48 F-16, among other necessary war assets.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon was designed by General Dynamics as an air superiority daytime fighter but it has evolved into a highly successful all-weather multi-role aircraft. We certainly cannot afford the 48 assessed by the US think-tank. But if we can begin with 12, that’d be great.

A dozen F-16s are many times better than the dozen or so proposed to be bought from Italy which, under current geo-political tensions in the region, cannot even play the role of scaring away unarmed transgressors.

In fact, so useless to my mind is the proposed purchase from Italy that I am beginning to suspect the plan is not actually to attain some semblance of military muscle but merely to allow certain individuals to make money out of the purchase.

Maybe the idea is really to go ahead a make a purchase and never mind what is being purchased. Maybe the idea of buying truly credible air assets such as F-16s seem too improbably because of the cost that it is better to buy cheap and never mind what we buy so long as we buy.

There is always money to be made in government purchases. But first you have to make a purchase. Do not ever believe that because President Aquino has promised a leadership that hews closely to the straight and narrow that he can make everyone toe the line.

The straight and narrow is a very broad and generic term and cannot hope to encompass everything that Aquino seems to mean when he says that. Besides, corruption itself comes in many forms and guises and does not always have to involve money gotten illegally.

Even Aquino himself is not so strict when it comes to defining corruption. To him, corruption only means ill-gotten wealth and nothing else. When it comes to the corruption of ethics and morals, his preferential treatment of friends gives away where he truly stands.

I am pretty sure Aquino, a gun enthusiast, is fully aware of the futility of purchasing those Italian planes that are only good for training but not as a defensive force. To go ahead with that purchase is to throw away good money for nothing, in face of current realities.

Current realities no longer put us in training mode. Instead we should rapidly embark on a war footing even if we have no intention of going to war. But it is only in thinking that we are can we assume the realistic perspective that will show us what we really need.

Last Saturday, front page photos of all the major national dailies showed formation flights of Philippine Air Force assets, none of which are jets. Nothing drives the point home better than those photos. It is time we change our circus planes to credible fighter jets.