Biggest military drill launched in Visayas

CEBU, Philippines —  The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has launched the AFP Joint Exercise (AJEX) also dubbed as “DAGIT-PA” which aims to enhance its land, air and maritime assets in joint “interoperability” operations.

The launching was conducted in the Camp Lapu-Lapu, the headquarters of the Visayas Command of the AFP, on Thursday morning.

The DAGIT-PA stands for “Dagat-Langit-Lupa” which will have a unilateral exercise that aims to further enhance the joint force interoperability and cohesiveness of the AFP across defense mission areas.

According to the AFP Chief of Staff, General Jose Faustino, this will be the biggest exercise that they will conduct aside from their exercises with the other foreign countries.

"Itong exercise na ito ay purely Filipino exercise, AFP exercise ito lahat," said Faustino.

Aside from the AFP, the marines, navy and the air force will be also participating.

Over the exercises, the public will know of the new assets that the law enforcement have that will be participated by at least 1,000 of their troops together with the reservists.

"We will be performing exercises that will address yung mga mission areas namin particularly yung defense, there be exercises covering our internal security operations also," said Faustino.

For internal security, among those that Faustino highlighted was the cybercrime security which will be among to execute during the AJEX.

According to him, the AFP is still in the initial stage of strengthening the cyber defense.

"This is one of the exercises na talagang gusto nating palakasin..there is always that tendency na we will be have a cyber attack and that is what we're trying to prepare," he added.

Currently, the AFP already has a cyber unit in which the exercise will show off their capability as of this time.

Faustino emphasized that they specifically picked the Central Visayas for the launching of AJEX considering that is composed of different islands.

The exercises on the operation of the urban trade will be done in the vicinity of Central Visayas along with the operations of the marine exercises.

However, some exercises will be done in the 3rd Infantry Battalion in Panay and Antique while some other exercises will be done in the National Capital Region.

The exercises will last for the whole month of November. — GMR (FREEMAN)