By MICHAELA DEL CALLAR
The Slovak Republic on Monday said it is eyeing defense cooperation with Manila that will enable them to provide training, firearms and other defense equipment to the Philippines.
Visiting Slovak Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said his government can offer defense “expertise, technologies and devices” that can be of use to the Philippine military, which is in the process of modernizing its aging equipment and armaments.
“Defense is one of the areas where we could cooperate,” Lajcak said after a bilateral meeting with Philippine counterpart Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario. “Slovakia has its expertise and we have some technologies.”
The Philippines, whose military is perceived to be among the weakest in the region, is currently scrambling to acquire ships, planes, satellites and coastal defense equipment mainly from the United States and also from other countries amid renewed territorial conflict in the South China Sea.
Manila and Beijing are locked in a long-running territorial dispute in the resource-rich waters, a cluster of islands shoals, reefs, and coral outcrops, where Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan also have competing claims.
The Philippine government accused China of infringing on its territory, harassing its fishermen, constructing artificial islands and sabotaging oil exploration. China, which claims the sea nearly in its entirety, insisted that all it actions are legal and undertaken within the scope of its sovereignty.
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