President Aquino enumerate list of weaponry to be added to the AFP

Philippines President Benigno Aquino III has announced plans to augment his country's defense capabilities.

Speaking on Tuesday at a ceremony marking the docking at the Manila port of the country's first Hamilton-class warship, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, Aquino said his government planned to make a large scale purchase of equipment for the armed forces.

He said proper management of public funds enabled the government to "offer more modern weapons, faster patrol craft and more effective equipment to our soldiers and police officers."

“This ship symbolizes our newly acquired ability to guard, protect, and if necessary, fight for the interests of our country,” Aquino said as the refurbished Hamilton-class cutter Gregorio del Pilar dropped anchor.

“This is just the beginning. Expect more good news because we will not stop at one ship.”

“This will upgrade our capability to guard our exclusive economic zone as well as the (oil and gas) service contract areas,” he said in a welcoming speech.

Many of those areas are claimed by China, which insists it has sovereign rights to almost all of the West Philippine Sea, even waters approaching the coasts of Southeast Asian countries.

Other parts of the sea, which is reputedly rich in mineral resources and straddles vital sea lanes, are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The competing claims have for decades made the sea one of Asia’s most dangerous potential military flashpoints, and tensions flared this year after the Philippines and Vietnam accused China of becoming increasingly aggressive.

The Philippines said the Chinese navy had fired warning shots at Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea, harassed an oil exploration vessel and put up markers on Philippine islets.

Aquino said the former US Coast Guard cutter, now the Philippine Navy’s flagship vessel, would protect the country’s exclusive economic zone and its oil and gas exploration activities in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

New Defense Weapon list and Budget.

Modern equipment such as

·        Surface attack craft,

·        Air defense radars

·        New assault rifles

·        Tanks,

·        Night-fighting equipment,

·        Sea-lift and amphibious vessels

Above enumerated equipments will be added to the Philippine defense forces' weaponry.

And the Philippine military’s budget of about $2.5 billion this year is just a fraction of China’s published defense spending about $90 billion.

Manila clinched the deal to acquire the Gregorio del Pilar—named after a Philippine revolutionary hero who fought the Spanish and died in combat against American forces—early this year, before the tensions with China flared.

The United States has since promised to help upgrade the Philippine military further, but no details have been released.

China’s state-run media this month warned the Philippines it could pay a “high price” for building up its military presence in the West Philippine Sea.

Philippine Navy bought the del Pilar from its ally, the United States, in May for $10.7 million.

Aquino described the decommissioned ship of the U.S. Coast Guard as "a symbol of our readiness to protect, guard and if needed, defend the interest and welfare of the nation."

The vessel would be assigned to western Philippines to boost maritime patrols to guard the exclusive economic zone, he said.

"It would also help fight illegal drug trafficking, boosts search and rescue operations, protect our marine resources and stop criminals from entering our archipelago," he added.

U.S. missile destroyers joined much older Philippine warships for extensive annual military drills off the coast of south-west Philippines two months ago.

It came immediately after the allies expressed growing concern over Beijing's highhandedness in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

During Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario's visit to Washington in June, his American counterpart Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was committed to the defense of the Philippines if China attacks Filipino forces in the Spratly Islands.

Rosario said Manila was concerned about the "aggressive intrusions" being made by Chinese vessels on the West Philippine Sea, as the Filipinos call the South China Sea.

Claims of sovereignty and jurisdiction over the South China Sea heightened tensions among other maritime nations in the region recently.

As the row escalated, the Philippines appealed to longtime ally the United States for help in beefing up its poorly equipped military, with Aquino saying his country could not contain China on its own.

The Philippine Navy has an old and badly equipped fleet of fewer than 80 ships to protect its coastline and vast marine interests.

The navy’s chief hailed the 115-meter (378-foot) Gregorio del Pilar, which replaces a World War II-era destroyer as the country’s flagship vessel, as a timely boost to the Philippines’ military power.

“She now symbolizes the revival of the Philippine Navy,” Vice Admiral Alexander Pama said at Tuesday’s welcoming ceremony.

“The Gregorio del Pilar’s ability to operate in adverse conditions… will be vital in securing our maritime nation’s territory and asserting our sovereignty in areas where our capability is now seriously needed.”

But even the “new” ship—acquired under a mutual defense treaty that gives the Philippines access to decommissioned US defense equipment—first went into operation in the United States more than 45 years ago.

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Gadhafi' 42 year rule is over - USA and Allies with the Libyan People celebrates for Victory!

Gadhafi’ 42 year rule - Game Over

Massachusetts— As Libyan people celebrated in Tripoli, President Barack Obama declared that Moammar Gadhafi’s long rule is over. “The future of Libya is in the hands of its people,” he said.

Speaking Monday from a rented vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard, Obama heralded US and international military efforts that helped bring about the outcome. But with Gadhafi’s precise whereabouts unknown, Obama cautioned that uncertainty and threats remained.

He urged Gadhafi to surrender and end the bloodshed, and the opposition to seek a just transition into an uncertain future.

“The rights of all Libyans must be respected,” he said. “True justice will not come from reprisals and violence; it will come from reconciliation and a Libya that allows its citizens to determine their own destiny.”

The crumbling of Gadhafi’s 42-year rule was being described by some analysts as vindication of Obama’s much-criticized decision to limit US involvement in Libya and let NATO take control after the US led the initial air campaign in March.

Obama stopped well short of declaring a military or political victory, leaving it to a spokesman to credit US strategy and “the president’s robust leadership” with producing “a lot of favorable results.” But the president highlighted NATO’s success after months of doubts about whether the alliance would be able to prevail.

“NATO has once more proven that it is the most capable alliance in the world and that its strength comes from both its firepower and the power of our democratic ideals,” Obama said.

And with his re-election campaign under way and a war-weary public focused on jobs, Obama was quick to note that it all happened “without putting a single US troop on the ground,” a policy that aides said Obama would maintain.

It has come at a cost, though: The Pentagon says that as of July 31, the US had spent about $820 million, including the daily military operations, munitions and humanitarian assistance.

Obama’s comments Monday were his first since a weekend push by the rebels into the Libyan capital, and since he arrived on this island retreat off the coast of Massachusetts on Thursday for a 10-day stay.

On Monday, Obama was briefed over the telephone by top national security staff, including Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Then he donned a suit jacket to speak to the press in the yard of his rented waterside farm, before heading out to play basketball.

Obama also fit in a call to British Prime Minister David Cameron, as the US and international partners that have recognized the rebel Transitional National Council worked to find a way forward. Secretary of State Clinton telephoned the leader of the Libyan Transitional National Council on Monday.

A State Department spokesman said Monday that no decision had been made about whether to send US experts to Libya to help prevent the Gadhafi regime’s massive arsenal of anti-aircraft missiles from slipping into the hands of terror groups.

US intelligence also has been “keeping a close eye” on Gadhafi’s chemical arsenal, which “at this point appears to be well-guarded,” according to a US official briefed on the Libyan operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

An Obama administration official said Monday that US officials and NATO partners had not been in contact with Gadhafi during the siege of Tripoli. The US has no indication that Gadhafi has left Libya. If Gadhafi were captured in Libya, the official said it would be up to the Transitional National Council to determine whether he might be tried in Libya or transferred to the International Criminal Court.

Also Monday New York Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand asked the Transitional National Council to arrest Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie airplane bomber who was freed by the Scottish government in 2009 after prison doctors said he had prostate cancer and three months to live. He still is alive

The Philippines will celebrate as Gadhafi game over

Moammar Gadhafi is the author of the 1970’s Muslim’s rebellion  in the Southern Philippines. Using the Libyan People’s money ; He purchased high powered armaments and shipped them to Mindanao Muslim people and challenged them to fight against the Philippines’ Government for independence.

Gadhafi is the mastermind of the trouble and disarray of the Filipinos in the Southern Philippines. He brainwashed the mind of the Muslims in Mindanao to claim the Philippines as a Muslim State and initiate rebellion, killing and beheading people which victims already reached up to 150,000 as of 2010.

Despite of the fact the Filipinos have the same origin and only divided in beliefs, Muslim rebels in the Philippines separate themselves and pronounced their difference between Christianity and other faith and claimed that they are the original settler of the country.

When we look at the history; prior to the Majapahit and Sri Vijaya Empires; People of the Philippines are atheist. They prayed to moon, Sun, big trees, stones and animals but when the Arabian missionaries reached up to the archipelago, most locals were converted into Islam.

 We back in March 15, 1651 when the Portuguese explorer re-discovered the Philippines’ archipelago, they introduced Christianity and converting almost all locals into Christianity.

Some other who are in the most remote part of Mindanao were not converted and remain to be Islam until in the present times.

The group of people who remains to practiced Islam now claiming that they owned the Mindanao rejecting the fact that all people have the same origin except the migrants and squatting the land of Christians who refused to convert into Islam and exercising dictatorship in religion which massive squatting happened during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo after she signed the MILF agreement.

The long battle against the Muslim separatist in Mindanao which been started by Moammar Gadhafi remains in trouble which hoping that this end of Gadhafi rule will be the end of conflicts in Mindanao.

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