Doorstop Interview, Palawan

SUBJECT/S: Exercise Alon; Australia-Philippines relationship; Indo-Pacific 

JOURNALIST: First off, tell us about the exercise and what’s your assessment of the exercise?

GILBERTO TEODORO JR, PHILIPPINE SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE: The exercise was very, very impressive. This is a new venue, and you saw that the coordination between both the Australian forces and the Philippine forces were smooth. So we hope to be able to logisticise and to think of new scenarios as it evolves.

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: I think, as the Secretary said, that it's been a very impressive and successful exercise, and an example of it in terms of what we've seen today. I mean, even in the last hour, what you've seen is air, sea, land all combining together; which is a really complex and impressive engagement between the two countries. And speaking to our personnel, there is a real sense of cooperation that exists between our two forces, which has very much been on display with what you've seen now.

SECRETARY TEODORO: A tremendous amount of logistics and planning have gone into what we witnessed here. I think credit also goes to not only those who actually participated in the assault, but those who went into the months of planning, months of preparation — the cooperation does not merely extend here, but also to hosting the forces, making sure that all the things you don't see; fuel and other necessities, are pre-positioned months before. So these things are just not planned overnight. Things like this are done with advanced planning. However, with the realisation that in a moment's notice, let's say for a typhoon or for whatnot, we may have to operate together.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Deputy Prime Minister and Mr. Secretary, welcome to Palawan. May we be enlightened about the Statement of Intent to pursue a defence cooperation agreement that will hopefully be signed next year. Is there a component there that says that there will be, like, a mutual defense treaty pact, similar to the US— yes?

SECRETARY TEODORO: No, no, no. That Statement of Intent sort of makes clear where our areas of cooperation will be. Actually, we're doing these things now. We want it formalised. The Statement of Intent has been signed. What we want— it’s a MOA or a defence cooperation agreement here. A mutual defence treaty is an entirely different thing, right? So, the defence cooperation agreement will concretise and provide the mechanisms for more continuous interactions between our two countries’ armed forces.

MARLES: That's exactly right. So, I mean, this is now the second iteration of Exercise Alon. As the Secretary said, you know, there's an enormous amount of planning which goes into an exercise of this kind; it's more than 3,500 servicemen and women participating in this exercise; 1,600 Australians who have come across for it. To do all of that work, all the preparatory work, requires a lot of interaction between our defence forces and what this agreement will do is regularise the way in which all of that interaction occurs and yeah, in terms of exercises, operations, the way in which we meet. And so it reflects the growing relationship between our two defence forces and underpins it.

SECRETARY TEODORO: And I think it's also important not to look at it mono-dimensionally. It also provides the framework for us to exercise with Australia and others in Australia, or example, in Pitch Black and Talisman Sabre, which provides our forces another dimension of an operating environment and operating scenarios that they may not be familiar with. So it is a two-way street.

JOURNALIST: This type of cooperation has long been criticized by the PRC. Are you prepared Secretary to reply or respond should there be another criticism from the PRC about this?

SECRETARY TEODORO: We expect criticism, but we will do what we need to do in spite of the criticism. Because the criticism, basically, of the PRC is really paranoia, and it is a propaganda line. Their criticisms are propaganda, which, unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, is not working.

MARLES: This exercise is about Australia and the Philippines, and there's a Canadian and a US component to it, it's about our relationship with those countries as well. But this is about building the interoperability between two countries which share values and have one intent; and that is to uphold the rules-based order in this region. It's as simple as that. And so that's what's going on here. And we're very clear in terms of how we message this to the region and to the world; what we are exercising here about and why we're doing this. This is cooperation about two countries which seek to assert the rules-based order and it is as simple as that. And in doing that, it contributes to the peace and the security of the region we both share. 

JOURNALIST: How does Australia view the one theatre concept?

MARLES: Well, we see that when you look around the Indo-Pacific, there are a whole lot of connections that exist. And that's really clear. I mean, when we look at our Defence Strategic Review, we think about the areas of interest for Australia as being the North East Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and the Pacific. So we understand the connectedness of all of that. And across that, you have a rules-based order which is under pressure. To be honest, you can take it beyond that. When you look at the connection between the Indo-Pacific and the North Atlantic, as President Macron said in Singapore, there's not many rules-based orders, there is one. And when it's under pressure in one part of the world, it's under pressure everywhere. So, you know, we that's how we see it. And coming back to the answer I gave before, what we are is two countries committed to the rules-based order and contributing to the assertion of that.

ENDS