The Philippines is hoping to finish the negotiations to acquire three Israeli-made radars worth P2.68 billion this month. These radars will be used to monitor the West Philippines Sea against aerial intrusions. According to The Star, Defense Undersecretary Eduardo Batac confirmed the completion of pre-negotiations for the radar project. “We have finished the pre-negotiations. That was actually a marathon negotiation for two weeks,” Batac said.
“Hopefully within May, we can finish (formal negotiations) because we are really putting priority to this,” he added. The three radars would be acquired from Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. -Elta through government-to-government transaction. “This is very important. This should precede the acquisition of all our air defense aircraft. We have to have the eyes, the ability to detect intrusions into our airspace before we can even scramble our air assets,” Batac said.
“We cannot let our fighters roam around our skies because it would be too costly. We scramble them on the basis of a detection report which is done by the radars,” he added. Batac, however, said that they could only start the talks once the special allotment release order (SARO) for the project is released.
“We cannot enter into formal negotiations until we have the SARO because the moment we enter into formal negotiations, there are already commitments both on the part of the supplier and us. There are some things which are to be prepared by us when the equipment arrives,” he said. Israel also offered assistance in the development of command, control, communications, computers and intelligence capabilities.
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