 Malikatan exercise 39-24 have taken up and it will include many different exercises but more so it is to improve the mutual development of both militaries and armed forces in all aspects of military operations from tactical to strategic level. And it includes the cyber defense exercise, the FBX and the maritime strike exercise and the multinational maritime exercise to be held in the western middle of the month. So with that, thank you very much for coming up for today and good morning. Thank you very much sir. Now may we have the statement coming from the general journey sir. For an opening statement prior to the beginning. All right, great. Thank you very much again. Lieutenant Joe Bill Journey, I'm the commander for Marine Forces Pacific. And on behalf of Admiral Juan Polino, I represent all of our US forces who are participating here in the exercise along with my counterpart as the exercise director. So it is again great to be here with our long standing allies. It's an exciting time as we kick off the 39th Malikatan. And as many of you know we've been doing Malikatan now for almost four decades. This year we continue our duty, I would tell you. As we challenge ourselves, as I said previously, we've increased both the scope, scale and complexity and pace of Malikatan. And we've increased our combined combat readiness and interoperability and opportunities to improve upon those. I mean we're no longer focused on just sort of the small scale unit tactics, techniques and procedures. They are fundamental, foundational, but we are now focused at the operational level. I'm excited to talk more about this year's exercise during engagement here this morning. But I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to say thank you to the Armed Forces of the Philippines and more importantly the people of the Philippines for being just such a tremendous host. And thank you to the government of the Philippines and the local governments and the local communities for their support. Again, I would just say our combined efforts here as we advance our shared goal of protecting Peaceful and Prosperous Region for us all just a tremendous opportunity in this year's Malikatan and look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Now prior for our question and answer, some ground rules that you have to observe. You'll be entitled for one question and a follow up. Please state your name and your outfit and to whom your questions are being directed to. So first off, can we call the winner now of CNA Channel News Asia? The Philippines is stoking tensions through these exercises. Hey Jeremy, China is saying that the Philippines is stoking tensions through these exercises but the fact that there are ASEAN member states in the observership program do you think that that indicates that China is alone in its view? What do you make of the observership of ASEAN member states in Malikatan since the observership program started? We thank you for the question but I think the viewpoints goes for the DFA. Hours is only covered with the focus on Malikatan. Although both the Malikatan exercise has many implications, we emphasize that the Malikatan exercise between the US and the Philippines has been going on for the past 38 or 39 years now and it's almost four decades that we're having and for the past four decades no issues has been raised on that so I think it's just a matter of point of view on what the exercise really is but for both militaries the exercise have been in the improvement in capabilities in understanding each other in all aspects of military operations. Thank you. Thank you Verna. Do you have any follow up? Can you talk more about the observership program and what is the added value when states from ASEAN are involved in this program since it started leadership? Well I would just add, I think it creates an opportunity for all of us. It's inclusion rather than exclusion in most cases and the exercise Malikatan has continued to grow each and every year and that's sovereign nations choosing and requesting to join the team here as we share our collective understanding and try to improve our collective capabilities across the board. So I think it represents an opportunity and when people see an opportunity to get better and improve and create new relationships, they're interested and we've seen that continue to grow. So I think it's very positive. Thank you very much sir. Now we call Patrick Desus of PTV4. Please pass the mic. Good morning sir. Sir, I think for the AFP side can you confirm the report based on the tweet of military analyst Ray Powell that at least two Chinese maritime militia vessels were spotted just 30 nautical miles from the shores of Malawa and can you consider this that China is sending a message given the fact that we have opened the Balikatan exercises today and there will be a multilateral maritime exercise within the West Philippines? Frankly, I cannot confirm you that all depressions of the maritime militia, but the Chinese maritime militia has always been in the South China Sea ever since the misunderstanding of these areas have started. So they've been there. They have developed them, but as to that report I cannot confirm or deny it but surely they have developed it. So that report I cannot confirm or deny it but surely I would say that we would expect some presence of the Chinese side also because they have built their structures in these areas. Thank you. Are there any contingencies just in case the Chinese side become more aggressive during the exercises? Well as part of the multinational maritime exercise we always adhere to international law and the freedom of navigation in these seas. So I think we wouldn't see any problem so long as we follow international law and follow our agreed, mutually agreed for therapy mechanisms. Thank you. Yes sir, do you want to add up? If I could, I would just offer one of the key aspects of Balikatan I think if you recognize a group of like-minded individuals who have come together by treaty in some case and by request and others whether observing or participating it is like-minded partners, allies and friends who are here based on a fundamental value belief in an international order based on international law. So I think the exercise is operating well within those and those that aren't, I'll let you be the judge. Thank you very much sir. Again may we request and remind all our media partners to really focus on the Balikatan exercise itself so that we will have a good interaction with our talking heads. Remember that our talking heads are the exercise director of these two nations participating so they could better answer this. Other questions as outside Balikatan can be addressed by our AP spokesperson and the designated spokesperson for Balikatan. Thank you. So the next question sir will be coming from Joanna Balderan of GG Press. Good morning sir. I'm Joanna Balderan from GG Press. Sir can you elaborate on the island exercise? Tell us more about these and you know some details about the exercise and when will this exercise be held? Well the island taking exercise will take place in the areas of northern Luzon particularly in the Bataanis group of islands and I think that's it. The island taking exercise, just some exercise on SOF operations, special forces operations more or less. So is that in response to like the Taiwan issue? Nothing really. It's part of the exercise as a means that our both the special forces units from the US and the PDT side work together in some degree of special operations. Thank you very much sir. Now we have a question coming from Jim Gomez from Associated Press. Jim where are you? Sir the exercise is hebatim of territorial defense or in this year's version of the Balikatan and for the first time the activities are being held beyond the territorial waters of the Philippines especially the South China seaside. With this what message are you sending to potential aggressor in the region? Can I get the answer from both the good generals? Yes it's the first time that we are going beyond our 24 nautical miles but it's not really addressed to any aggressors but for the US as we have been speaking and the Philippine side it's more of the development of our interoperability our collective effort protection of international law and develop that make sure that the freedom of navigation in these areas goes freely and not be impeded by any other parties in the process. Thank you any follower? Yes sir can you add up? I didn't get the first part of his question. One of the themes of the exercises this year is territorial defense for the Philippines and for the first time. Yes sir. I think again exercises here and exercises in other locations operate based on international order and international law and I think well within your own sovereign rights and responsibilities we're conducting exercises that are normal. Yes you can have your follow up Jim. But we have increased scale and scope and complexity as I said so as you're describing something that appears to be different in an exercise freedom of navigation and movement and importance of international law goes on each and every day and the fact that you're doing those concurrent with an exercise is perfectly acceptable in my view. The US military brought a mid-range capability missile system to the northern Philippines but there's no plan to fire this system so what is the tactical significance of bringing it here and because it took several hours to bring it here from the US to the northern Philippines would you consider living in the Philippines? Sure we all collectively exercise participants are moving and deploying a variety of equipment planes, ships systems to support some new, some old and all of those are an opportunity to learn, practice, rehearse look at what the roads, the bridges partners and allies have a greater understanding of equipment and capability the Philippines themselves offer a great opportunity from a training standpoint whether it's working in the literals and the archipelag and islands for individuals to operate we go to Norway for cold weather training mountainous environments so you have some of the most waterways and islands for us to learn how to conduct operations across a full range of mission sets not only as an individual service not only with our bilateral partners but with also other partners and allies so like I said that's the complexity of how we continually and progressively increase what we're doing while command and controlling and coordinating across that force and supporting and sustaining it logistically just pretty tough government work alright? Thank you very much sir thank you Jim our next questions coming from Elehrimonio of Ike Good morning sirs so this year's valley catanyl hold the inaugural information warfare exercises can you expound on this what are the specific activities and targets are you hoping to achieve from the exercise and how does it differ from the cyber defense exercise that I believe the AFP has already been doing I think again that represents the continuing increase in complexity not only of this exercise but today's operating environment I mean right now as we sit here you are conducting information operations right? and so as a military force being able to synchronize our activities and coordinate so that we work together is important and as you know achieving clear understanding by different parties in order to achieve a singular desired effect it's challenging it's tough so synchronization I would say in the information space across different systems we have different systems that we need to be able to communicate across a combined and joint force so I'd say that's probably one of the key aspects of it and we're all learning and we're learning a whole lot from each other and that's the other great opportunity that just presents the information warfare exercise as mentioned by my counterpart we have included information warfare exercise to increase the complexity and the exchange of learning knowledge between the two military it also includes other parts of our government that are particularly from the foreign affairs the PCO and the defense department we have included so that we would be able to integrate our own efforts as a whole of government in the process of information while on cyber defense it's highly different because it talks on the cyber another domain of warfare that we have to develop but it readily focuses on defense within the internet systems within our communication systems and that's the difference between cyber and cyber defense just to follow up what kind of threats are you imagining or expecting in the information space or cyberspace that you hope to address with this exercise well the cyberspace or information space that you have mentioned is very complicated every day we have malware every day we have spywares complicated that every day and day to day now we are encountering it that we really need to have be able to protect our systems and information within that kind of system that we have developed I would say the other side of that would be opportunities so there are challenges or potential threats but there's also opportunities so you need to approach both with equal vigilance in any third country we provide and create over the course of a year we sit down and plan these and identify the objectives that we want to work together on and so you create fictional situations that would allow a training audience to try to solve a problem and learn something from it so that's the approach okay, thank you very much sir another question coming from Ken Sasaki of Kyoto News first time is first time that the PCG vessel actively participated into Barikatan and why civilian vessels needed to be a part of this exercise and is it related with the harassment or maybe water cannon or something by a Chinese side in West Bank I didn't quite understand the person can you please we're talking about including civilian vessels into exercise and was this related in any way for the in our resupply mission that we use civilian are we including civilian vessels like I think from the Philippine Coast Guard and our Coast Guard during the exercise I think that's the point of the question as mentioned earlier that includes the complexity of that increasing the complexity of the exercise because it's no longer the whole military itself but it already includes other agencies of government with the US and the Philippine side working together to be able to protect our own interests and our sovereignty in the process so it's just an integration between the different agencies of government to be able to protect our interests based on international law our freedom of navigation our interests in those areas as part of our sovereign territory so being able to better communicate coordinate with other agencies outside of a purely military organization again represents an evolving security environment that also represents an increase in complexity but one in which we need to get better at and improve so that we're able to share information with our Coast Guard with our police forces and we really reach out to them and include all those interagency organizations in the exercise that we can and once again the Philippines being a great host they have accommodated those types of training opportunities in this exercise Thank you very much Okay, follow up? Yes, so what kind of training particularly for these PCG vessels Navy vessels are going to be Well, it can be as simple as you've got to talk to them so you've got to communicate with them you have to be able to share locations and understanding in order to maintain maritime domain awareness of a situation so command control and coordination is challenging enough internal to the United States Marine Corps and now we need to do it across the Air Force and the Navy so those things are training opportunities that we are getting after so I think maybe they're taking for granted just a little bit like you're going to pick up your iPhone and be able to talk to everybody and it don't quite work that way and I don't think you think that but just an example Thank you very much sir Okay sir we have another question here Baya Good morning sirs sirs ang we have 14 countries participated as observers in this year's valley Katan is this the biggest number of countries that participated as observers may I know the total numbers of participants as observers I really don't know yet the exact number now but it includes our allies in Asia and of course that includes Australia, South Korea and Japan as mentioned during the opening ceremony so the real numbers of observers I I don't have the exact number of it but that includes our allies just to emphasize the exercise is to develop shared goals the shared commitment and that goal and commitment are shared with our friends, partners and allies within the region so that's just for the case of the observers it's how to develop the trust and confidence within our neighbors particularly the asian countries Thank you Okay Anipa la Baya I will tell you we did talk last year at the end of 23 we sit down at the end of this collectively and we talk about how it went and we talk about hey, what are our aspirations what are the things that we're going to consider for next year before we start doing detail planning and both of us sat down with our senior leaders and we ask ourselves are we going to measure success by simply having more people participate or are we going to measure success by actually doing more complex activities and so that's why in our opening comments we were highlighting there are plenty of individuals interested and I believe the numbers are actually higher this year than last year both in quantity and in observers but I will offer to you that the real measure of success here is the complexity and scope of that which we are undertaking to get better at and we've got a lot of work to do but I would offer to you to take a look at those as a real measure of success Thank you very much sir just to give an update for everybody about the number of participants this will be updated as time goes by during the entire conduct of the exercise some of the other participants are still coming over so we'll give you some updates on that and it will be course through our designated spokesperson so that will be it Thank you very much Bea with no further questions may we call on Cliff Venzon from Bloomberg Cliff are you? So ok na it's happen I think you have already answered your questions where our last two questions will be coming from Ms. Ellen Abin and Spencer so Ms. Ellen Abin from Arab News please Sir what makes this year's fund different from the previous iterations what sets it apart from the previous iterations and what sort of scenario are you looking at that you needed to conduct marathon exercises outside the Philippines territorial waters what kind of trends The difference between last years Balikatan and now Balikatan is actually increasing the complexity of the exercise and letting learn within each other it's the learning that it's the quality of learning that we have now in the 39th iteration and we have emphasized this particularly to our senior officers because the command and control exercise is a really complex planning and decision making process that we should do were in our well trained and those really how to do so that in the actual sense of activities we would be able to appropriately and efficiently perform it and that would better serve the people we are serving in the process of this execution and the complexities of this exercise that we have now the capability of our own personnel so that we can better serve you one historically there's been a command post exercise series of events there's a field training exercise series of events and then there's civic action series of events and those were all executed very well and delivered the results very complex and we've combined all these events underneath those for them to work after we've also identified within those command and control coordination challenges and opportunities there's information warfare exercise there's cyber exercise there are the combined joint all domain operations because again it is not only joint and combined but the complexity across all domains air land sea, information, cyber space and extending that into the interagency organizations to include the Coast Guard the police those would be examples that I would offer of how it has increased in scale, scope and complexity What sort of scenario are you looking at when you plan the conduct of maritime exercises outside the Philippines territory of waters? We create scenarios that enable the training that we're trying to achieve so you work backwards so if you're trying to achieve the following objectives then you simply create whatever scenario is most conducive to get the exercise force to do that so there's not some scenario it's based over the course of the year that's the work that all of our planners do to generate those types of activities that we're trying to achieve in an objective and that is just standard training 101 for all training in the exercises that we do those Would you like to add up? The counter part Okay, thank you very much Our last question will be coming from Spencer from AAP radio Morning sir, this question is for Sir Liquidini My name is Spencer from AAP What are the significance of Balikatan aside from equipping our national security but in terms of the in terms for our Tanabik development and can you give some information about teachers Balikatan's humanitarian civic assistance Well, this year's Balikatanda for programs for humanitarian civic action One is Kagayan Another one is La Union One is in Ilocos Pasukin Ilocos Norte and the other one is in Buksal Palawan and if the HHA varies from schools to to health centers that would help the communities Well, the significance of Balikatan as mentioned within the openings is not just an exercise between the AAP and the inter-Pacific command but it integrates all the collective learning the understanding the cooperation collaboration between the armies to achieve that level of efficiency and interoperability so that we can better work in the process of addressing issues and concerns within the region so that's the real sense but in the process of doing so we develop that cohesion that would deliberately support also our effectiveness in matters of operations Thank you And if I could, I would just add as an example and as you well know Super Typhoon Igay last August because of the opportunity of Balikatan and working together both understanding the different locations and geography and the ability to command, control and coordinate with our counterparts we were able to provide immediately both heavy lift helicopters and medium lift ospreys that quite frankly moved from Edcasites in Palawan to Subic all under the direction of the government of the Philippines working with all of our counterparts and pushing into the baton of silence from Laylo in Nebraska and that was thousands of pounds of life-saving support to folks who were suffering from that so those are examples of how these opportunities in Balikatan enable those types of things as likewise just in February with the torrential rains and the mudslides in the southern region now I was C-130s right out of 3 maps that immediately they moved the locations that we had already practiced and worked together at under the same challenging command, control and coordination across our governments to be able to make those things the need of the people to prevent suffering and save lives and so those were a result of our continued working together of designing an exercise that allowed us to better learn how to do those things in a more effective joint and combined way Thank you very much that's the last question before we end with our press conference may I request any parking can we start with none for me I think for the opportunity and I think our gracious host it's a tremendous opportunity it's allowed us all to increase and enhance our combined operational capabilities across all domains like no other that we have an opportunity to do and it's built on just the ironclad relationship we have here we will do before working together Yes sir, thank you sir Your parting remarks sir Well the exercise is well founded on the interoperability cooperation and collaboration between US and Philippine Armed Forces particularly so that we can better serve our people and protect our territory and so bring in the process Thank you very much and good morning That's all for our press conference Maraming maraming salamat to our talking heads General Journey and Major General Ligodini again to our media partners present Maraming maraming salamat sa yung participation Lunch producer at Public Affairs Office AFP so after this you can have that