Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro maintained the newly signed Reciprocal Access Agreement has not much significant difference from the country’s existing Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States and Australia. 

“There are no more significant differences between the RAA and the other VFAs we have with Australia and the US,” he said in a press conference shortly after the 2+2 Defense and Foreign Affairs Ministerial Meeting between the Philippines and Japan at Shangri-La hotel in Makati City on Monday. 

Teodoro stressed the Philippines-Japan’s RAA is “tailored” to conform to the requirements of domestic law of each country. 

“That is the only difference. In essence, everything remains the same,” he pointed out. 

Teodoro said the RAA allows the interoperability between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces both in Manila and Tokyo. 

“The way forward would be for our armed forces to come up with mutually acceptable confidence-building measures between and amongst themselves which will include greater training and interoperability exercises,” he added. 

Teodoro said the RAA would also lead to greater exchanges of information and other cooperative activities—whether bilaterally or multilaterally—based on the rules-based order as well as the upholding of the essence and principles of international order, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 

“It would put flesh into our already robust bilateral relations and it will be a great step toward the concretization of trust and now comes confidence among the members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force and the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” he added. 

Teodoro likewise noted that the newly signed agreement would expand and increase both countries’ partnerships on humanitarian and disaster response initiatives. 

“With this signing we look forward to increased cooperation and work in order to bring this agreement—not merely in exchanges of signed deeds, but in actual work and actions in order to bring greater stability to this part of the world,” he said.