Joint Press Conference with Gilberto Teodoro Jr, Secretary of National Defense, Philippines

SUBJECT/S: Australia-Philippines; China; Defence Spending

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Let me start by saying what an honour it’s been to be here in Manila today to be with my good friend, the Secretary of National Defense, Gilberto Teodoro. Gilberto and I have now met on frequent occasions here in Australia and in fact, around the world, and I am deeply indebted to Gilberto for this friendship and partnership in what is a really, fundamentally important relationship for Australia. Australia and the Philippines are both countries which have shared values and a shared commitment to the rules-based order, an order which is under pressure in our region. And what we have seen over the last few years is a growing body of activity between our two defence forces to assert the rules-based order within the Indo-Pacific. And what this means is that a relationship between our two countries, which has been in existence for decades and which has been underpinned by very strong people-to-people links and a great degree of trust, now has a really significant strategic dimension to it, and that very much formed the basis upon which our conversation and our discussions happened today. This meeting is also occurring whilst we are seeing Exercise Alon and over the coming two days, both the Secretary and I will be able to have the privilege of being able to see our servicemen and women work together in this very important exercise. This is the largest exercise in which Australia will participate beyond our shores this year. It’s an exercise involving more than 3,500 personnel, principally Australian and Filipino personnel, but also including US and Canadian forces. There are about 1,600 Australian personnel who will be participating in this. HMAS Brisbane, one of their air warfare destroyers, will be present in this exercise. There will be infantry components as well as Air Force components. We’ll have F-18s, Growlers, P-8 aircraft. It’s a significant contribution from our Air Force, which means that this is an exercise which is occurring across all three services – air, land and sea – as well as components of special forces, components in cyber and components in space. The point of all of that is that it is an increasingly complex exercise, more complex than the first iteration of Exercise Alon two years ago, and that’s really what we are seeking to achieve in Exercise Alon this year. And the complexity of the exercise reflects the depth of our relationship, and it reflects the growing trust between us. 

Today, we have, as you’ve just seen, also signed a Statement of Intent to pursue a Defence Cooperation Agreement that we will seek to sign this time next year. This will be a really important step forward in terms of our defence relationship. It builds on the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding between our two countries. It will encapsulate the totality of our engagement in defence, but it will include, for example, a commitment to see us having annual Defence Ministers’ meetings. It will look at how we can do more in terms of coordinating our exercise and operation tempo between our two countries, it will look at how we can do more in terms of pursuing infrastructure development here in the Philippines, for the benefit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. And to that end, we have also, as part of our outcomes, agreed to pursue a defence infrastructure plan. Right now, Australia is pursuing eight different infrastructure projects across five different locations here in the Philippines, and we’ve agreed now to establish a plan between our two countries which will guide the way in which our infrastructure investment is pursued over the coming years, to see greater infrastructure here in the Philippines for the benefit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. I really want to thank again, Gilberto, for your warmth and the way in which you have hosted our delegation over the course of today, and we really look forward to what we’re about to witness over the weekend with Exercise Alon. Your friendship has been really important for me, and as we work together in what is an increasingly complex and volatile world, the relationship between Australia and the Philippines, the way in which it is being transformed in a strategic sense, the depth of the growing defence relationship, is something that is really exciting to be a part of, and I’m so glad to be able to pursue that body of work with you.

GILBERTO TEODORO JR., SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE: Thank you very much to our distinguished guest Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, also Minister of Defence of Australia, and members of the delegation. We are honoured once again to have the Deputy Prime Minister here for the third time, this time to witness the biggest Exercise Alon so far, and in our talks together, we have signed a Joint Statement of Intent, which places in concrete form the way we want our defence partnership to grow and progress. There will be a lot of work following this Statement of Intent. Of course, we want to see a Defence Cooperation Agreement based on this Statement of Intent signed next year, and it is appropriate for such a Defence Cooperation Agreement to be signed next year when the Philippines hosts ASEAN as the Chair. Also, this follows the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Australia and the Philippines. We are thankful for the unstinting support of Australia for our rights under UNCLOS and international law. We are also very thankful for the support that Australia has been giving the Philippines in terms of resilience, in terms of people-to-people exchanges, in terms of developmental assistance that Australia has been giving us. We also are working together heavily in this region, in the Indo-Pacific region, in order to uphold our shared values of international law amidst increasing shared challenges. And lastly, the Deputy Prime Minister comes at a time when we are witnessing the effects of a monsoon and we expect more to come. And climate change is a reality, which we in this area, in the Pacific, cannot ignore because we are the most hit, and we also will enhance cooperation for disaster resilience, among other key areas of convergence. Once again, we thank the people of Australia for appreciating the strong people-to-people ties as manifested through their government and our government. And in this way, we also wish to convey to the Deputy Prime Minister our thanks and our hopes for a stronger convergence, a stronger partnership. And we wish not only to be upholders of norms, but enforcers of right conduct and the appropriate way of conducting international relations between countries in the Indo-Pacific and in other areas where our common and shared values may permeate. So thank you very much, DPM Marles for your visit. We look forward to putting the framework we have put in today, and I’m sure that, as our Chief of Defence Forces are working together, our people down the line in both the department level and the armed forces level are working very hard. We are very happy, and we need to give a shout-out to our people in uniform and their civilian complement for a wonderful job that they have been doing so far. This relationship, actually, and these Statements of Intent are also by-products of the strong working arrangements that we’ve had down the line, and so it is synergistic in this sense, and we hope to see this bear fruit in the future in a more robust manner.

JOURNALIST: Good afternoon to both Deputy PM Marles and Secretary Gilberto Teodoro. Shortly before your meeting today, the Philippines Armed Forces last night reported concern around Chinese Coastguard other vessels near Sierra Madre near Ayungin Shoal. How alarming are these updates in your view? We hope to get statements from you both on this recent development, and grateful if we can get your view on, given these developments, these escalatory developments from China in the South China Sea up to the Southern Pacific, how would you view the US, where both of you are security partners? How reliable is the US nowadays as a security partner in this part of the world?

TEODORO: First, the activities of China in any area, whether it be Sierra Madre or any area under their nebulous claims, are a matter not only of concern, but of condemnation, because these are in gross violations of international law, and actually it is a product of a false narrative. I have even seen some social media posts saying that they are the progenitors of certain areas in the Philippines, so their disinformation is as disgusting as their activities, and we need to stand up to this. And secondly, what was the other question? What was your follow-up question? On the –

JOURNALISTS: On the reliability of the US trading partner, and particularly in the context of, I understand your first meeting between the two of you was in November 2024, and President Trump was just elected and hasn’t assumed office yet. So we’re wondering if we can take stock of –

TEODORO: Well, insofar as the Philippines is concerned, based on our recent visit to Washington, and based on the working arrangements on the squad, the trilateral, the bilateral basis, as we’ve seen in Balikatan, the security relationship is very strong. What we cannot control are the unilateral activities of China. Hence, the need for deterring China and giving the strong message that their activities will not be tolerated by the international community. And not only us, because these are gross violations of international law, and no matter how they answer, the fact is, they are answering for the benefit of their own people and not the world, because the world cannot be presumed to be unthinking so as to accept hook, line and sinker what they are saying.

MARLES: So perhaps, to start where Gilberto finished, America is absolutely a reliable partner, and we, as we’ve been talking today about the work that we are doing bilaterally, we instinctively are talking also about how we combine that work with the cooperation we both have with the United States. And the United States plays a profoundly important role around the world, but within this region and the United States is a reliable partner. From an Australian point of view, our alliance with the United States is as significant today as it has ever been. I want to say, in response to the first part of your question, what underpins the cooperation between Australia and the Philippines is that we are both countries which are deeply invested in the rules-based order, and we are both countries which seek to work to uphold that order, and we both acknowledge and are experiencing the pressure that the rules-based order is being placed under here in the Indo-Pacific. Now we work really closely with the Philippines in terms of asserting the rules-based order in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea, and that’s really important for us to jointly do. We understand that in that work there will be an interaction between defence forces. What we expect in that moment is that those interactions are done in a safe and in a professional manner, and we do have concerns about those standards not having been met in this instance.

JOURNALIST: Good afternoon. Secretary, Deputy Prime Minister, my question is, what role does the Australia–Philippines Alliance play in terms of countering or deterring aggressions in the West Philippine Sea?

MARLES: Well, in a sense, it’s just the answer that I just gave. The work that we do together as the two countries which seek to assert the rules-based order is fundamentally important in seeing that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea applies around the world in the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea and we are both countries which are utterly dedicated to that, and we understand the pressure that the rules-based order is under in this neck of the woods. But I think I want to make this point as well. We, as countries of our size, we are invested in rules-based order because it’s what gives us agency. We are given agency, when international disputes are determined by reference to international law and by reference to a set of rules, and when those disputes are determined through negotiation. The alternative is living in a world where disputes are determined by power and might, and that can’t be the way in which we move forward as a world in 2025 and that’s why we are, as two countries, deeply committed to the rules-based order and to our joint cooperation in asserting that everywhere around the world, but in the West Philippine Sea.

TEODORO: I just need to add a small thing. We are countries invested in the rules-based order, and we really need international law to have some parity, so that might does not mean right, and we are also used to negotiating in good faith and not with insincerity. And as I have said, much as China professes wanting dialogue and negotiation, there is a deficit of trust that they need to overcome. And with these activities that have been happening, that deficit has widened more than lessened.

JOURNALIST: Deputy Prime Minister Marles, you are hard to track down, I’ve had to come all the way to the Philippines to ask you a question about accountability, but I’ll give it a go. When will you finally admit that the Australian Defence Force is woefully under-equipped thanks to your current budgetary spend?

MARLES: Well, thank you for the question. And really happy to answer that question anywhere, including very much in Australia. And of course, I’ve answered questions of that kind frequently in Australia.

JOURNALIST: But nothing has changed.

MARLES: But I completely reject the assertion of the question. I mean, when we came to government, we inherited a lot of challenges associated with our Defence Force. We engaged in the biggest root-and-branch review of our strategic circumstances, of the state of our Defence Force, of the kind of Defence Force that we need to build.

JOURNALIST: There have been multiple reviews, Minister. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it started with you or with your government. I think it’s fair to say it’s been through successive governments. But what are you doing now today to make it better and fix it? Because this is all very nice. This is a fantastic shop window. You don’t want to be known as Minister for Showbags; there’s got to be substance to it.

MARLES: Well, really happy to answer the question if you will allow me to answer it. There is significant steps that we have taken, and if I can complete what I’ve said: when we went through the Defence Strategic Review, we worked out what sort of Defence Force we need to build in order to meet the strategic challenge that we face. Now, what that has resulted in is two things, to answer your question. One is an unprecedented level of reprioritisation of the existing Defence spend so that we are focused upon building a Defence Force which has the capacity to project; and the second thing that it’s done is seen the biggest peacetime increase in Defence spending in Australia’s history. Now, that’s the fact.

JOURNALIST: That’s voodoo mathematics.

MARLES: Well, it’s not voodoo.

JOURNALIST: You are not talking into account inflation or the rising cost of weaponry or the Australian dollar’s performance against the greenback – all of those things have eaten into that budget; all of them are more expensive.

MARLES: Well, obviously, if you want to make a speech, you can do that. But the fact of the matter is, when you actually look at what we have done, we have taken into account all of the factors that you have just described, and it has given rise, even with all of that, to the single biggest peacetime increase in Defence spending in Australia’s history. Now, that might fit whatever narrative you’re trying to put to air. But that is in fact what has occurred, and the result of that is that we are seeing service combatants, in terms of our fleet, being brought into service five years quicker than what we inherited when we came into office. We are now seeing longer-range missiles and missile manufacturing happening in Australia, way ahead of what we inherited, such that that manufacturing is commencing this year. We’re seeing significant steps being taken down the path towards Australia requiring a long-range submarine capability under the banner of AUKUS with a nuclear-powered submarine capability. We are seeing a much more amphibious army. We are seeing unprecedented investments in our northern bases, and I could keep going. In fact, all of these, all of these, are happening, and it is about meeting the strategic moment that we face.

JOURNALIST: Good afternoon. Thank you for providing us a picture of how the Philippines and Australia would step up the two countries’ defence cooperation by citing the envisioned Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement by next year. I’d just like to ask – will this be similar to the Philippines-US EDCA? Will this be a treaty or an executive agreement?

TEODORO: No, it will not be like the EDCA. Definitely, we will work on the appropriate arrangements as our forces find out what they need. EDCA is an offshoot of a mutual defence treaty and not the Visiting Forces Agreement – that is a fundamental difference. So we will work out the appropriate arrangements, but we need, in order to operationalise the status of Visiting Forces Agreement with Australia, more facilities to service them for the increased tempo of joint exercises and joint activities.

JOURNALIST: There was mention of infrastructure plans. Can you tell us the infrastructure plans?

TEODORO: We cannot tell you.

JOURNALIST: What areas is it?

TEODORO: We cannot tell you.

ENDS