Philippines, Japan ink military access agreement

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines and Japan are deepening security and maritime cooperation including in the cyber domain following the signing of a landmark Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) yesterday.

The RAA was signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Kihara Minoru with their Philippine counterparts, Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro.

Witnessing the signing of the RAA at Malacañang, President Marcos said the “very, very important event” showed the fruit of what they had been “working hard to achieve.”

“Your presence here increases our confidence and the importance that the Japanese government puts on these extremely important agreements that we have,” Marcos told the Japanese officials after he witnessed the signing of treaty documents between Teodoro and Kamikawa.

The defense agreement, the first made by Japan with a Southeast Asian country, will take effect after ratification by the two countries’ legislatures. Tokyo forged similar agreements with Australia in 2022 and with Britain in 2023.

The Senate has vowed to closely scrutinize the RAA before ratification.

The RAA will facilitate procedures and set guidelines for Philippine forces’ visit to Japan for training and joint exercises, and vice versa.

For her part, Kamikawa described the RAA as a “great achievement” and a key to maintaining and strengthening a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

“The fact that we are able to sign the RAA today is a great achievement after the leaders decided to launch negotiations at last November’s summit meeting,” Kamikawa told Marcos.

“To maintain and strengthen the free and open international order based on the rule of law, we would like to strengthen our partnership under Your Excellency’s leadership,” she said.

The Philippines is the first recipient of Japan’s newly launched Official Security Assistance (OSA).

During a working lunch with Manalo yesterday, Kamikawa said that Japan would provide a coastal surveillance radar system to the Philippines under the OSA, strengthen bilateral coast guard coordination and provide additional patrol vessels through Japan’s official development assistance.

Kamika