“Our cooperation continues to grow. That means deepened information-sharing, combined maritime activities, joint training and capacity building. And we can do even more in the future,” Austin told American and Philippine reporters in a press briefing.

This marked Austin’s second stop in the Philippines during his fourth trip to the island nation — the most any U.S. defense secretary has made to that country to date. At the press briefing, Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro said Austin requested to pay a personal visit to WESCOM on this stopover.

On the ground at the headquarters, his team toured the C2 Fusion Center and observed in-development drone and interoperability technologies that the two militaries are jointly refining. That center is one of several built by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in the Philippines to enhance information-sharing and collaboration.

“I just watched the Philippine Navy demonstrate the capabilities of a T-12 unmanned surface vessel. The T-12 is one of several unmanned capabilities funded and delivered this year through U.S. security assistance,” Austin said.

On the sidelines of that event, U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Logan Hampton briefed DefenseScoop on some of the intricacies of that platform.

“It’s made by Martac, which is a U.S. company, and it’s called the Mantas. It’s a 12-foot unmanned surface vessel. It has redundant comm pathways for over-the-horizon and local — so, line of sight. Then it has autonomous avoidance, and then it has a clear camera for a [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or ISR] payload,” Hampton said.

The drones are primarily deployed to help increase the military forces’ maritime domain awareness. They operate as a sort of littoral monitoring station that can be sent out and then feed back data and imagery to inform commanders about operations and incursions at sea.

When equipped with all the add-on assets and packages available, according to Hampton, the USVs can reach a range of about 30 nautical miles.

“So this unit is a developmental unit. They have four of those — two of them in ISR configuration, two in a sonar configuration. One of them is actually on the water in Oyster Bay here that’s conducting surveys now. And they have a larger vessel — that’s a T-38 — that’s a 38-footer that it’s in [Subic Bay right now], and it’s being controlled by these two operators here. So, both boats that are on the water right now are being controlled by Phil Navy personnel [who are] USV operators,” the staff sergeant told DefenseScoop.

Notably, the USVs are enabled partially via Starlink capabilities powered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites, which Hampton called “a force multiplier.”

“It makes everything easier — very plug-and-play. You can see there’s a mini Starlink right there that’s powering them right now, for the internet … as they’re controlling from afar. And then there is a maritime Starlink on each of the vessels and this Fusion Center being ran by Starlink. So, it’s pretty useful,” Hampton said.

In Hampton’s view, this work is a strong example of how the U.S. and Philippine militaries are facilitating pathways to strengthen inoperability in real-world missions.

“We’re doing AAR — or after-action reviews — and we’re just, together, on the Philippines and U.S. side, just trying to develop this as quick as possible,” he said.

Hampton expected to be stationed in Palawan and working in this capacity until sometime in the first quarter of 2025. However, he emphasized that — while this is all unfolding in partnership with American forces — these are strictly the Philippines’ capabilities.

“We don’t control them. We are partners, and we help them with enhanced cooperability and integration. But this is theirs. So, I can’t tell them, like, ‘Hey, go do this. Go do that.’ It’s all about building relationships and working by, with and through the partners. And it’s their show. We’re just here to support,” Hampton said.

Later, at the press briefing, Austin confirmed that “many more platforms like this” will likely be delivered to the Philippines in the near term — particularly through the $500 million in foreign military financing he announced during his last visit to the nation.

The military allies are currently puzzling out the platforms and capabilities the U.S. will supply — but officials suggested an early focus will be on cyber and asymmetric capabilities.

“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to help [Teodoro] increase his domain awareness, his ability to protect his sovereign territory and his interests — and cyber plays a critical role in that respect. You saw evidence of that earlier today when the T-12  was on display out there. And the … T-12, as you know, a fundamental part of that is the ability to command and control that using cyber capabilities. We have to protect those capabilities,” Austin told DefenseScoop.

“And we have to ensure that also that as we acquire more of these systems, that our supply chains are protected, and that we meet the demands as conditions change and things evolve,” he added.

Building on that, Teodoro told DefenseScoop that his national government is in the process of developing convergence measures to protect the country’s critical infrastructure, domestic supply chains and telecommunication systems from vulnerabilities that they could face now and in the future.

In response to questions from Philippines-based reporters, the defense secretaries said that they could not speculate on whether these and other high-stakes U.S.-Philippines joint military pursuits will carry on after Donald Trump is inaugurated as America’s next president in January.

“But I believe that this will remain an important country to us for many, many years. And the strength of our alliance, I think, will transcend changes of administration going forward,” Austin said.

Teodoro noted that the U.S. is a treaty ally, so his nation “would like certainty or guarantee with our bilateral relations.”

“But we should feel also on the other side of the coin, equally, with our anticipating of the possible and what will happen [with regard to the] United States next year, we should be calling out what [Chinese President Xi Jinping] is thinking about in so far as China is concerned — because the alternative factor, a positive factor, which has caused this alliance to be as robust as it is, is Chinese overreach and aggression in this party of the world,” Teodoro said.

Amid intensifying coercion in and around the South China Sea, he further said that Chinese military personnel have increasingly been denying his nation access to its exclusive economic zone in the West Philippine Sea.

“They have really placed a lot of these pseudo-military vessels disguised as Coast Guard vessels, hence, maritime vessels in the areas of the West Sea. And they have been very aggressive in their information operations against the Philippines,” Teodoro said.

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“It’s part of the strategic approach to facing our shared threats that both of our countries have invested a lot of resources, a lot of manpower, and a lot of brain power. And I’m sure it will benefit future generations of both our peoples to come,” Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro said.

After the events, a senior defense official and another defense official deeply involved in these efforts shared new details about the new center, or CCC, and the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).

“Signing this agreement will now allow the United States and the Philippines to exchange classified information in a smoother way and in a more frequent way — and that will facilitate deeper cooperation in a whole number of realms,” the senior defense official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

Broadly, the GSOMIA is a legal framework negotiated between the American government and a foreign government to establish that each party will properly protect and handle classified military information to an equivalent degree of protection that is required by the organization releasing it.

“Whether it’s with a pilot and an aircraft or to exchange information that we’re seeing through various technologies — manned or unmanned — it will give us a faster way to exchange this information,” the senior defense official told DefenseScoop.

This trip marked Austin’s fourth to the Philippines — the most times that a U.S. secretary of defense has visited the island nation. 

During his last visit, the U.S. announced $500 million in foreign military financing for the country.

“We are going to use that $500 million in cooperation with the Philippines to prioritize asymmetric capabilities, cyber capabilities. And across these types of capabilities, there will be an element where being able to engage more smoothly in the classified space will enhance our ability to work effectively,” the senior defense official said.

They confirmed that Pentagon leadership is actively working with the Philippines to map out the initial capabilities they want to purchase.

In Manila, the defense leaders also participated in the groundbreaking for the new Combined Coordination Center.

Officials told reporters that the CCC will be another mechanism via which the nations will be deepening their relationships and coordination, particularly with regard to the South China Sea, across multiple domains.

“We’ve been doing this on an ad-hoc basis for a long time. And I think as we expanded our exercise series, and particularly Exercise Balikatan over the last couple of years, it was clear there was a need to take this out of random conference rooms and into a more dedicated center, especially one that had the right types of information feeds coming in — both classified and unclassified information — that we could see together [and] serve space that we work in,” a defense official said on condition of anonymity.

The militaries are planning to open the new CCC by fall 2025.

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“During this trip, we will deliver results to advance cooperation, strengthen our relationships, and build an enduring network of allies and partners. I am proud of the historic progress we’ve made over the last four years and the depth of continuing U.S. commitment to the region,” Austin said in a statement ahead of takeoff.

Earlier this week, senior defense officials previewed plans for the trip on the condition of anonymity during a briefing at the Pentagon with a small group of reporters invited to accompany Austin on his journey. They spotlighted aims to promote deeper research and technology-driving partnerships and further the U.S. military’s interoperability with partners in the region.

First, the secretary and his entourage will land in Darwin, Australia. There, he’ll participate in a trilateral defense ministerial meeting with his Australian and Japanese counterparts. 

Senior U.S. defense officials said those involved plan to make “significant strides” to evolve their joint air and missile defense and information-sharing capabilities.

“On the interoperability front, you will see the three ministers … announcing that Japan is committing to integrate its forces into Marine Rotational Force Darwin rotations to train alongside the United States and Australia in Darwin starting next year in 2025. So that’s going to be a very critical … deliverable rounding out those trilateral discussions,” one of the background briefers said. 

After that first stop, Austin and his crew will continue on to the Philippines, where they’ll spend a full first day in Manila and then a half day on the island of Palawan.

He’ll visit Camp Aguinaldo, the Philippines’ military base where their Department of National Defense is housed, to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for a new bilateral Combined Coordination Center, or CCC, where forces from both nations’ militaries will sit side-by-side to conduct operational planning.

Next up, in Palawan, Austin will visit Philippines Western Command headquarters, which is a key node for ongoing naval operations in the South China Sea.

“Then Secretary Austin will head to the C2 fusion center, a site built by [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] for military information sharing — for a Philippine Navy tech demonstration of a T-12 unmanned surface vessel,” a senior defense official told reporters in the briefing.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop, the official said there will not be any announcements associated with the U.S. pre-positioning uncrewed assets in these Pacific nations to deter China, but the demo will involve military personnel from the Philippines operating some of the drone systems that the Pentagon has provided to them.

“Those types of systems will be a strong theme throughout the effort, for sure,” they told DefenseScoop.

From there, Austin and the team will go to Laos for the ASEAN defense ministers meeting. 

On the sidelines, the Pentagon leader is expected to unveil multiple new partnership initiatives and announce what officials called the “first-ever U.S. DOD vision statement for a prosperous and secure Southeast Asia.”

Austin’s last stop on this journey will be in Fiji — notably marking the first time an American leader serving in that capacity visits the nation. 

“Significantly, this is the big announcement. He will announce that our countries will begin negotiations on a U.S.-Fiji SOFA, the Status of Forces Agreement … You know this is important, because it really spells out how the United States, our forces, can operate in the country, and it will empower us to do more together with them,” a senior defense official told reporters. 

Austin is also set to sign a new “acquisition and cross-servicing agreement,” which the official said will enable America to send logistical support to the island nation “very quickly in any kind of emergency.”

“I am proud of the historic progress we’ve made over the last four years and the depth of continuing U.S. commitment to the region,” Austin said in the statement.

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The Philippines occupies a strategic position in the Asia-Pacific where the U.S. and China are competing for influence. Washington and Manila already have a mutual defense treaty dating back to 1951. But the new agreement comes as both nations are concerned about Chinese aggression.

The new guidelines aim to “guide priority areas of defense cooperation to address both conventional and non-conventional security challenges of shared concern to the United States and the Philippines.”

One of those priorities is to “improve cyber defense and cyber security cooperation to secure critical infrastructure and build protection against attacks emanating from state and non-state actors by strengthening interoperability” between U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the armed forces of the Philippines,” as well as “fostering collaboration with other relevant departments and agencies.”

Bilateral military exercises and other activities will focus not only on deterring and countering armed attacks by ground, air, maritime, or amphibious forces on either country in the Asia-Pacific — including in the highly contested South China Sea — but also address threats in space and cyberspace, “while expanding the scope, scale, and complexity of such exercises and training,” per the guidelines.

Notably, the agreement also calls for partnering on securing classified information. That arrangement comes after troves of classified U.S. national security documents were posted online — allegedly by a U.S. service member — on social platforms such as Discord.

In the wake of the leaks, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has launched a “comprehensive” review of the Pentagon’s security programs, policies and procedures for protecting that type of data. Pentagon CIO John Sherman also issued a “data call” aimed at ensuring DOD components are vigilant about who has access to sensitive information. Sherman also spoke Wednesday about how a zero-trust security architecture could have prevented the leaks.

Going forward, Washington and Manila will “consult on policies, practices, and procedures related to the protection of defense and military classified information in support of the swift conclusion of a General Security of Military Information Agreement,” according to the bilateral guidelines agreed to on Wednesday.

The allies are looking at a wide range of areas for additional collaboration, including budget planning for the Philippines and procuring military equipment.

The two nations plan to develop a “security sector assistance roadmap” that will “identify priority defense platforms and force packages over the next five years to bolster our combined capabilities and capacity to resist coercion and deter aggression.”

The procurement of interoperable systems is to be prioritized and aided through a variety of mechanisms including U.S. foreign military financing, foreign military sales and excess defense articles programs — as well as Manila’s defense acquisition and funding initiatives.

During a meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Austin “reaffirmed the Department’s commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities as the allies develop a Security Sector Assistance Roadmap to guide shared defense modernization investments over the next five to 10 years. Secretary Austin highlighted near-term plans for the United States to transfer several defense platforms to the Philippines to support the AFP’s continued modernization efforts,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a readout of the engagement.

During a background briefing with reporters via teleconference on Tuesday, a senior U.S. defense official told DefenseScoop that the development of the roadmap is already “underway.”

“In terms of completion, I don’t think we have publicly put a date on that — so I’m hesitant to do one in this call. But what I will say is you should assume we are working on it with the utmost haste and hope to have that out as soon as possible,” the official said.

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