More missile systems, more ‘impactful’ Balikatan seen next year

MANILA, Philippines — Learning from this year’s Balikatan exercises, the Philippines is now looking to further boost its military capabilities by acquiring more missile systems like those used by the United States and Japan during this year’s war games.

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr., in his speech at the closing ceremony of Balikatan 2026 yesterday, acknowledged the need for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to invest more on its people and its assets. 

Earlier this week, the US military’s Typhon missile system was used for the first time to launch a Tomahawk missile from the Tacloban Airport in Leyte, which hit its target in Laur, Nueva Ecija.

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force also fired its Type 88 surface-to-ship missile to help sink a decommissioned Philippine Navy warship in a maritime strike exercise held in the waters of Paoay, Ilocos Norte in the West Philippine Sea.

Teodoro said the successful holding of this year’s Exercise Balikatan showed how the AFP must strengthen itself more by acquiring such modern warfare capabilities, which also means investing in skill sets and infrastructure.

“And this demonstration of the Tomahawk, where 600 kilometers away it was launched and hit a very, very precise target to the millimeter, was a demonstration of why continuous investments in our defense capabilities are necessary in the evolution of technology and vulnerabilities in the world today,” he noted.

“Peace is not a free dividend. It comes with resources, it comes with commitment, it comes with sacrifice. On this note, I look forward to a more purposive and impactful Balikatan next year,” he said.

Thanking the US military and other like-minded countries who joined this year’s exercises, he emphasized that “we need to keep the pace up… especially for the Philippines because of years of neglect.”

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., AFP chief, agreed that the military should acquire more missile systems because “we want to train our personnel in all the modern weapons that we can get our hands on.” 

“We believe that we have to develop our own capabilities so that we can defend the archipelago by ourselves. Although we have, of course, our allies and partners, but we have to rely on ourselves first,” Brawner said. 

“We have plans of procuring more of the missile systems that we saw recently used here in the Balikatan exercise. That is the future direction of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as we modernize our capabilities,” he said.

Brawner thanked partner nations that participated in Balikatan 2026 – Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – and those that sent observers: Brunei, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Thailand.

US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Samuel Paparo thanked the AFP “for your leadership, for your professionalism, for your hospitality.”

“Balikatan 2026 marks a strategic evolution from a bilateral exercise to a full-scale multinational mission rehearsal for the defense of the Republic of the Philippines. This growth reflects the dangerous security environment we live in and it also requests the sovereign choices of partner nations,” Paparo said.