PH-US joint patrols, naval exercises put on holdBy Associated Press and ReutersDefense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Friday that he told the US military that plans for joint patrols and naval exercises in the disputed South China Sea have been put on hold, the first concrete break in defense cooperation after months of increasingly strident comments by the country’s new president. President Rodrigo Duterte also wants to halt the 28 military exercises that are carried out with U.S. forces each year, Lorenzana said. Despite the difficult stage in the country’s relations with its former colonizer, Lorenzana remained optimistic that those ties would eventually bounce back. “I think it’s just going through these bumps on the road,” Lorenzana told a news conference. Under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, the US and Philippine militaries twice staged naval exercises near the disputed waters.

Source: Manila Bulletin October 07, 2016 16:07 UTC