I don't think this is a matter of us being taken more 'seriously' just because we've successfully
run out big-ticket buy-cycles prior. Either our money is there at the appointed hour or it isn't, for
the Swedes at least. With the U.S., things are even goosier: the U.S. has seriously offered PH
Lawn Darts before ---indeed long before any big ticket notches in our belt: the double dozen
Falcon offer of 1987 in particular, such as I will cite again later.
I'm not worried about foreign attitudes, but rather, local issues. I'm looking at political horizons.
Foreign observers can freely speak on their own domestic contexts, but here, in the Philippines,
money and political will are far more tenuous considerations. My points of reference go a decent
ways back: I personally remember when the last of the MAP Freedom Fighters was delivered,
'67-ish.
My worry is based on this:
It's almost always well past noon whenever MRF (particularly F-16) aspirations get zombied up.
The only time post-60's these were floated up early enough in a term to be credible was when it
was the U.S. that broached it (just like the MAP F-5) to Corazon Aquino's administration, via then
Secy of State Shultz in '87, but then the U.S. Treasury Department's finest just *HAD* to deeply
offend someone's brother, to the point of nixing any/all F-16 talk.
If talk starts late, the option for the US to just string us along, until a more amenable-and-pliant
administration is in place (one they can dictate inferior terms to), is just too attractive for them
to pass up.
Rodrigo Duterte is stepping down post summer 2022, and we're past halfway through his term.
I've seen Presidents with far less erratic policy-making fail to stay the course in MRF acquisition
when started so late: COUNTING on an impending end of term to absolve them of the cost. I've
also seen succeeding administrations back-burner the defense acquisition projects of far less
antagonizing predecessors, out of sheer spite.
....but this is really about the vexing quality of the (non-)news item itself.
No, I leave SecDef Delfin Lorenzana blameless: he was asked a question, which he answered,
whereafter the PNA decided to fill in the blanks with hot garbage:
F-16V? Really?
PNA will posit 70/72 which are nearly 200M (with sides and sauce) each, new-build, even when
in a larger-scale deal like ROC's 66 new birds + 144 upgrades from Block 20 ... cock-pitted (in the
"sabong" sense) against a Swedish bird that costs less than half? Worse still if it's 39C/D rather
than new 39E/F. Even on an AMARG-zombie-upgrade-to-quasi-70 route, it's a ridiculous mismatch
on cost terms, flyaway and especially lifecycle... and even more ridiculous a mismatch on basis
of performance spec quals/disquals... so why assume 70/72?
Puñeta, e sa "General Dynamics" F-16V pa lang, this article was just underripe compost.
The same kind of MRF-related sewer-gas we've all had to deal with, again and again and again...
