By Robina Asido

The Australian government will provide "drone equipment, training and other technology" for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday.

This was announced by Wong in a press conference after a bilateral meeting with Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo.

"We discussed today the ways in which we will enhance our cooperation. This includes Australia providing drone equipment, training and other technology to strengthen your Coast Guard's maritime domain awareness and protection capabilities," she said.

"And I was honored yesterday as I outlined to the foreign secretary to meet your Coast Guard officials yesterday and to the headquarters and share their experiences on the West Philippine Sea or the South China Sea and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea," she added.

Wong added that the "Australia is also sharing information and providing technical assistance for maritime legislators and government officials and working with you to increase your capacity to deal with illegal fishing in the maritime zone."

In an interview with the Daily Manila Shimbun, Rear Admiral Armando Balilo, PCG spokesman, expressed appreciation for the plan of the Australian government to strengthen the maritime domain awareness capability of the PCG as announced by Wong.

"We are happy if they will give us. We will appreciate whatever help that will be given to us especially if it could help us accomplish our task particularly on maritime domain awareness and other functions of the Coast Guard," he said.

Wong did not provide details on the specific budget allocated for the equipment and other technology that they will provide to the PCG.

She noted that the budget of Australian government which was delivered just last week includes "an investment of an additional $55 million to deepen our engagement with Southeast Asia, building on our 470 million (dollars) boost in development assistance to the region in the earlier budget."

"We will support more people to people links, including specialized scholarships, and we are committed to our Southeast Asian economic strategy to 2040 which the secretary and I discussed," she said.

Wong and Manalo also expressed openness in also working with other "like-minded countries" like Japan and the United States to maintain freedom of navigation as well as peace and stability in the region.

"Yes, various trilateral modes of cooperation are certainly under consideration. And I look forward and we look forward to discussing with Australia and our other partner, Japan, and even with perhaps the United States on possible modes of cooperation. We are certainly planning to take forward these discussions in the very near future," said Manalo.

Wong stressed that Australia wants "to be the Philippines' strategic partner".

"We want to work with the Philippines and with other parties and other nations in the region to help shape the region we all want. We all want peace, we all want stability. We all want to prosper. And we want to work with our strategic partners and we hope to be one soon with the Philippines," she said.

"We want to work with ASEAN respecting ASEAN centrality as the center of such a region. And obviously, we will continue to work with our partner the United States. So these are discussions. What we are looking at is what are the ways in which we can do that? And we're very open to those discussions," Wong added. DMS