By Priam F. Nepomuceno
MANILA, Aug. 12 (PNA) — Matters designed to further strengthen Filipino-Japanese military relationship were discussed during the meeting at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City on Wednesday between Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Hernando DCA Iriberri and his counterpart in the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
“We discussed matters on how to further strengthen our military-to-military relationship based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Defense Cooperation and Exchanges which was signed by both our countries’ defense establishments,” Iriberri said.
However, Iriberri declined to elaborate further.
JSDF head Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano earlier paid a visit to his Filipino counterpart at Camp Aguinaldo Wednesday afternoon.
Kawano will stay in the Philippines until Aug. 14 to observe the activities under the Pacific Partnership 15 (PP 15), an annual humanitarian and civic assistance exercise aimed at strengthening international relationships with partner and host nations in the Asia-Pacific Region.
This year, it started last May and will end in September.
It is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region.
Its missions have provided medical care, veterinary services and critical infrastructure developments to host nations through engineering projects.
The PP 15 also includes advance disaster risk reduction trainings for stakeholders, multilateral leadership forum on gender and development, partnered training with barangay health workers, biomedical repair exchanges, and a disaster risk reduction forum intended to enhance international response to natural disasters.
Among the highlights of PP 15 is the medical mission being conducted by personnel from various countries on board the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) which arrived in the Philippines last July 18. (PNA)