EDITORIAL - Jets not suited for our needs

Judging by the glowing press releases that attended the deployment of two South Korean-made FA-50 fighter jets to the Mactan Air Base, the nagging fear is that it will be, heaven forbid, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar episode all over again. So please, Dear Lord, do not allow some gung-ho general or upper echelon official to send any of those jets to the South China Sea and there create another international incident we might all regret later.

The two FA-50s are part of a total of 12 such aircraft ordered by the Philippines, of which six have been delivered this month. The FA-50 is a light combat variant of the TA-50, which was originally designed as a trainer jet. Priced at roughly US$30 million each, the FA-50 is in service with the air forces of only four countries — the Philippines, Indonesia, Iraq, and of course South Korea.

The enthusiasm generated by the delivery of the six jets is frighteningly reminiscent of that which greeted the acquisition of the BRP Gregorio del Pilar from the United States. The del Pilar was a mothballed US Coast Guard cutter that, upon acquisition by the Philippines, became the leading ship of its navy. Impressed to no end by the acquisition, the Philippines took to calling it a warship to anybody who cared to listen.

Bristling with bravado, the Philippines sent the "warship" to the South China Sea to intercept Chinese poachers, a task usually carried out by Maritime Police, with little or no objection from China in recognition of its law enforcement nature. But with a "warship" now doing the job, China quickly saw it as a provocation and gave it the excuse it had long been waiting for. China sent its own ships and drove away the del Pilar and the rest is history.

Now we have new "supersonic fighters" which, if the press releases are to be believed, are bristling with combat possibilities. Again, heaven forbid that we again embark on another folly and send these jets buzzing at the fringes of whatever is left of what used to be ours in the South China Sea. These jets neither have the capability to fight a foreign enemy nor the credibility to even act as a deterrence.

If the Philippines truly wanted aircraft designed for combat and deterrence, it could have bought, say, F16 Fighting Falcons from the US for roughly the same price. The F16 C and D variants were priced in 1998 at roughly US$19 million each. Taking into account inflation, it should be within the same range as the F50 today. But the F16 is a real fighter with the zing and wallop that the F50 was never designed to have. Then maybe we could have done a little buzzing near the Spratlys.