Philippines, Brazil discuss ways to further enhance defense cooperation

Officials from the Philippines and Brazil met on Wednesday to explore ways to expand their defense cooperation.

The meeting took place at the Department of National Defense (DND) headquarters in Quezon City, which was attended by DND officer-in-charge Jose Faustino Jr., Ambassador of Brazil to the Philippines Antonio J. M. de Souza e Silva and Special Envoy of Brazil to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Piragibe Tarragò.

Tarragò underscored that "defense is one of the significant areas of cooperation between the Philippines and Brazil," the DND said in a press release.

He then said that a high-level delegation from Brazil would visit the Philippines within the year.

Tarragò also invited Faustino to visit Brazil.

Faustino, on the other hand, solicited Brazil’s support for the ASEAN Outlook in the Indo-Pacific and welcomed the further development of bilateral cooperation between the two defense establishments.

“Both sides expressed their intent to further develop the bilateral defense cooperation through the conduct of pilot training, the establishment of a bilateral defense dialogue mechanism, and the conclusion of a framework to facilitate logistics and defense industry cooperation,” the DND said.

“The two sides agreed on the importance of discussions to identify the mutual defense concerns between the Philippines and Brazil and highlighted that defense cooperation between the two countries should be a two-way street,” it added.

In September 2020, the Philippines received four fighter planes from Brazil.

Last month, the Philippines signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation with Brazil, the first Latin American nation to have such an agreement with the country. —VBL, GMA News