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By Robina Asido

This year's Balikatan exercise is the "best and the most outstanding" bilateral drill between US and Philippines, Department of Defense Officer in Charge (OIC) Senior Undersecretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said during the closing ceremony in Quezon City on Friday.

"I've been with the Balikatan but I think this is the best and the most outstanding. This year's Balikatan exercise is no ordinary iteration it has said many historic first as the chief of staff said aside from being the largest exercise so far with around 17,767 participating troops, consisting of 12,107 American, 5469 Filipinos and for the first time 111 Australian troops from our friends," Galvez said.

United States Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said "this year's Balikatan saw several innovations that show the evolution of" Philippines and United States alliance.

"In addition to being unprecedented in terms of size, our forces also introduced cyber and space elements to the exercise scenario, showing our seven-decade-old alliance is constantly evolving to address 21st century threats," she said.

Carlson said the threats to the region monitored in the past few decades include "challenges to the rules-based international order via provocations in the South China Sea, as well as global issues like climate change, environmental degradation and water scarcity.

"The Philippines is our eldest treaty ally in East Asia and largest recipient of security assistance in East Asia, and the US-Philippines alliance plays an irreplaceable role in addressing these threats," she said.

In his speech, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief Gen. Andres Centino said this year Balikatan is "not only the biggest in terms of the number of participants it also mark a lot of firsts."

"The first Littoral live-fire exercise which was attended by our commander in chief, the first coastal defense live-fire, the first time to launch the Patriot missile to Philippines, the first cyber defense exercise, the first exercises were held in multiple venues and the first time that our long standing allay Australia join the exercise," he said.

"We believe that sustained training with our allies and widening the scale of interoperability among our militaries have the most effective ways to do this over the short term. As we learn from history we have rather had friends and allies to work, train and defend with us rather than defending alone in unity and synergy were definitely stronger," he added.

Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, expressed belief that "next year it will be even bigger".

"The integration of our strong bilateral ties and robust security network of like minded nations is evident by those who were in the crowd and it is good to see all of the partners from Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, and whoever... That group of nations always comes together to deliver one thing and that is the like minded set of focus areas to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific that enables prosperity, stability and peace for all of our nations," he said.

Galvez said other international observers of this year's Balikatan include Vietnam, Singapore , Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, India, France, and the United Kingdom.

Maj. Gen. Marvin Licudine, AFP Balikatan exercise director, said the Philippines and United States forces have "achieved the year's exercise goals with excellence."

"The AFP and the US armed forces have raised the level of competence working in a joint combined environment, the exercise also focuses on improving AFP capabilities for maritime security and domain awareness and we were also able to test newly acquired equipment and weapon systems under the AFPs modernization program," he said.

"Moreover the Balikatan also serves as a learning opportunity especially for the AFP to enhance skills, knowledge and expertise of our soldiers corresponding to different tactical situations in order to protect and preserve our territory and better serve the Filipino people," he added. DMS