The Philippine Army (PA) and Australian Defense Force (ADF) concluded Exercise Carabaroo, a bilateral training aimed at improving their combined arms capabilities, in Darwin, Australia on Monday, September 5.

Around 150 soldiers from the PA’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, First Scout Ranger Regiment and Special Forces Regiment (Airborne) trained alongside their Australian counterparts at Robertson Barracks and Mount Bundey Training Area Australia for Exercise Carabaroo.

Colonel Xerxes Trinidad, PA spokesman, said the exercise “strengthened [the] interoperability of participating troops in a complex environment. United States Marine Corps personnel also joined the Philippine and Australian armies during the month-long training.

Exercise Carabaroo was part of the Australian Army’s ‘Exercise Predator’s Run’, a multinational training event that simulated littoral combined arms maneuvers in a large-scale force-on-force environment.

Exercise Carabaroo ran alongside Exercise Southern Tiger which involved Australian and Malaysian troops; and the Kartikaburra exchange program in which Australian and Indonesian troops participated.

United States Marine Corps personnel also joined the Philippine and Australian armies during the month-long Carabaroo training.

The Philippines and Australia have forged strong military cooperation over the past decades. The two countries have signed four security agreements, namely the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperative Defense Activities; the 2012 Visiting Forces Agreement; the 2015 Global Partnership Agreement; and the Mutual Logistics Agreement 2021.

In a similar vein, the United States Marine Corps has expressed interest in building a stronger alliance with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

This was underlined during the courtesy visit by General David Berger, Commander of the US Marine Corps, to Lieutenant General Bartolome Vicente Bacarro, AFP Chief of Staff, at AFP headquarters ( GHQ) at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, on Monday. .

Berger was greeted by Vice Admiral Rommel Anthony SD Reyes, deputy chief of staff of AFP, who represented Bacarro.

“Both sides expressed the importance of nurturing the long-standing alliance and relationship between the Philippines and the United States to anticipate and address current maritime defense security challenges in the region and strengthen the military interoperability between the two countries,” said Colonel Jorry Baclor, head of AFP’s public affairs office.

Berger and Reyes also agreed to continue bilateral exercises between Manila and Washington such as Exercises Balikatan and Kamandag.