Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro pointed to political and institutional hurdles that supposedly inhibited the Philippines’ deterrence posture.
‘It’s not effective at all. That’s why we have to adjust,’ Teodoro said in a roundtable discussion with the Inquirer on Wednesday.
‘A credible deterrence posture is not a static or a fixed number because you have to take into account what the enemy does to catch up and to overcome your system,’ he explained.
‘Political will is one of the factors. Secondly, the process of how the government works institutionally. The lack of funds is already an obstacle, but outdated civil service regulations are also another stumbling block,’ he noted in Filipino.
Teodoro cited the cases of Ukraine, which is currently at war with Russia, and Singapore, which spends up to 6 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.
The Philippine defense chief explained that prior to his tenure, the country’s deterrence strategy was prepared only for a ‘post-invasion’ scenario involving guerrilla warfare.
Although he noted that the defense department increased its budget by 12 percent in 2025, the funds were for maintenance and other operating expenses.
‘That’s where we usually lack because we not only have to secure the boundaries, participate in bilateral and multilateral exercises, but the most important is humanitarian assistance and disaster response,’ Teodoro explained in Filipino.
‘We’re already tied up… and we’ve nailed ourselves down,’ he further said.
‘The slower we do it (strengthening deterrence), the worse it will become for future generations after us,’ he stressed.