Citing recent incidents of “illegal incursions of China in the West Philippine Sea ,” Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri stressed the urgent need for procurement reforms to “expedite purchase of defense equipment the country needs to protect its territory.”
At the same time, the Senate leader complimented the timely passage of amendments to the Government Procurement Reform Act embodied in the pending Senate bill aiming to boost the domestic defense industry. “You know, when you buy an aircraft,” Zubiri asserted, “even a 10-year-old aircraft, as long as it is well maintained, it can still be durable within the next 30 years.”
He said the bill “revitalizes the Self Reliant Defense Posture [SRDP] program implemented in the 1970s to support the growing military hardware requirements of the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines].”