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Philippines Defense Spending and Industry
After steadily declining defense spending during the early
1980s, the defense budget grew in the latter half of the decade.
Military spending in 1988 totaled 14.14 billion pesos (for value
of the
peso--see Glossary),
or US$680 million, about 1.7 percent
of the country's gross national product
(GNP--see Glossary). The
1988 budget represented a greater than 50 percent increase in
real spending for defense (adjusted for inflation) over 1985, the
last full year Marcos was in office. Defense spending as a
proportion of national government expenditures also grew during
Aquino's tenure, from a 1985 low of 7.7 percent, to 9.1 percent
in 1989. Still, the military's share of the national budget, like
total military spending, did not approach the peaks reached
during the Moro wars of the 1970s. In 1979 the Philippines spent
more than P17 billion (US$806 million) in comparable 1988 pesos
for defense, a figure that represented almost 17 percent of the
government's budget.
Budget figures do not include United States security
assistance, which represented a substantial portion of total
spending on the Philippine military. United States military aid
increased significantly after Aquino came to power, accounting
for 80 percent of military spending on procurement, operations,
and maintenance in 1989. United States military aid that year
amounted to US$127.6 million. Most of the assistance--US$125
million--was provided as a grant under the Military Assistance
Program whereas the US$2.6 million balance funded training for
Filipinos under the United States International Military
Education and Training Program. During the 1988 review of the
Military Bases Agreement, the United States pledged its best
efforts to increase grant aid to the Philippine military to
US$200 million annually in 1990 and 1991.
The thrust of United States security assistance efforts in
the late 1980s was to help the Philippine armed forces better
combat the communist insurgency. Improved tactical mobility and
communications and better equipped soldiers were top priorities.
Between 1986 and 1989, the United States sent the Philippines
almost 2,900 military vehicles, nearly 50 helicopters, more than
1,650 radios, approximately 225,000 military uniforms, and more
than 150,000 pairs of combat boots. Other assistance items
included assorted infantry weapons and ammunition and medical
equipment.
The Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP) program, initiated in
1974, took the development of a domestic defense industry as its
objective. Defense officials contracted SRDP projects with the
government arsenal and local manufacturers, encouraging the use
of indigenous raw materials and production capacity. Projects
included domestic production of small arms, radios, and assorted
ammunition. One of the most significant SRDP operations was the
manufacture of the M-16A1 rifle under license from Colt
Industries, an American company. According to a 1988 statement by
the Philippine armed forces chief of staff, the SRDP not only
increased Philippine self-reliance, but also cut costs, provided
jobs, and saved much-needed foreign-exchange funds.
Despite growing budgets and increased foreign military aid,
the armed forces still was described in 1989 as one of the most
poorly funded militaries in Asia. Philippine defense spending on
a per capita and per soldier basis remained the lowest of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, despite
an active communist insurgency. One study of the military
concluded that the armed forces suffered from major resource
problems. The author cited serious shortages of vehicles,
helicopters, radios, basic infantry equipment, and spare parts.
Food, medicine, and clothing also were said to be in chronically
short supply. Shortages were compounded by an inefficient
logistics system hobbled by red tape and corruption. Soldiers'
poor living and working conditions often were mentioned as
underlying factors in the military's discipline problems. Top AFP
leaders acknowledged many of these shortcomings and were
attempting to correct the mismanagement of resources.
Plans in 1990 called for modernizing the military,
particularly the air force and navy--services whose forces had
received relatively little funding because of the army's extended
counterinsurgency campaign. Many of the navy's major ships and
craft were World War II-era, and the aging fleet was increasingly
difficult to maintain. Modernization plans called for phasing out
inefficient ships, refitting others, and acquiring more patrol
craft. Using United States military aid, the navy contracted in
1989 for thirty-five fast patrol craft, thirty of which were to
be assembled in the Philippines by 1997. The air force inventory,
described as one of the most primitive in the region, likewise
was to be enhanced by major purchases under a ten-year
modernization scheme. The United States was scheduled to deliver
twenty-nine MD-520 attack helicopters between 1990 and 1992. The
air force also was hoping to add two squadrons of modern fighters
such as the United States F-16 to its fleet of nine F-5s.
Data as of June 1991
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