MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines is looking forward to an “ironclad alliance” with South Korea following the signing of the terms of reference (TOR) on the scope of their armies’ cooperation.

Philippine Army (PA) chief Lieutenant General Romeo Brawner Jr. and his South Korean counterpart, Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) chief General Nam Yeongshin, signed the TOR on Thursday, January 20, the Army said in a statement.

”I have this hope that through this TOR, the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of Korea will have an ironclad alliance that is ready to face security and defense challenges not only in our respective countries but as well as in the Indo-Pacific Region,” Brawner said.

The Army said that the PA-ROKA TOR “establishes an Army-to-Army level collaboration that is in accordance with the June 2018 Memorandum of Understanding between the Philippines’ Department of National Defense and South Korea’s Ministry of Defense.”

The TOR defined the following areas of cooperation between the two armies:

• Reciprocal visits
• Mutual exchange of army-related insights and information
• Military education and training
• Logistics and maintenance
• Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
• Military medicine and medical support
• Subject matter expert exchanges
• Military technology cooperation
• Research and development
• Military sports and cultural activities, and other areas of mutual interest 

In August 2021, the navies of the two countries shared best practices in the fight against COVID-19.

The strong alliance between the Philippines and South Korea dates back to the Korean War in the 1950s, when the Philippines, as part of the United Nations Command, deployed over 7,000 military personnel to help South Korea.

In 1994, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on logistics and defense industry cooperation. – Rappler.com