President Mulls Buying Brand New Jets
One of candidates of brand new jets for Philippines Airforce is F/A-50 from South Korea (photo : bemil.chosun)
MANILA (AFP) — The Philippines is looking at arming itself
for the first time with dedicated fighter jets made outside of the United States, President Benigno Aquino said
Wednesday amid a territorial dispute with China.
The Philippines
last month requested aircraft, patrol boats and radar systems from its US military
ally to help it achieve what the government said would be a “minimum credible
defense.”
Aquino said that his government had asked to buy secondhand
F-16s from the United States,
but their maintenance costs could end up being too high because of their age.
"We might end up spending $400 million or $800 million
per squadron, and we were thinking of getting two squadrons," he said in
an interview with Manila's
Bombo Radio.
“We do have an alternative, and — this is a surprise — it
seems we have the capacity to buy brand-new, but not from America,"
Aquino said, without mentioning the aircraft model.
"These are manufactured by another progressive country
that I won't name at this point."
Aquino noted that Manila
had retired its last fighter jet, a Korean War-vintage F-5, in 2005. It does
continue to fly S211 trainer jets made by the Italian firm Marchetti, which are
sometimes used as ground attack aircraft against various insurgencies.
But along with the F-5, the Philippines
had previously relied on obsolete US hand-me-downs including the T-33
and the P-51 Mustang as dedicated attack fighters, and the country now has no
effective air defences.
It is engaged in a tense maritime standoff with China over the disputed Scarborough Shoal and
surrounding waters in the South China Sea.
Both nations have stationed vessels there for over a month to assert their
sovereignty.
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