$5.6B F-16 purchase plan, a harebrained idea, huge graft plot or both?
THE Marcos plan to purchase 20 F-16C fighter jets for $5.58 billion, including the necessary armaments such as air-to-air missiles, is a foolish one. We will never go to war with China for which the jets are supposedly needed for, and if we did, those jets will be obliterated a few minutes after they take off: China has 3,300 fighter jets, and 700 Dong Feng-21, and 26 medium- and intermediate-range missiles that could reach anywhere in the Philippines. Twenty F-16 jets whose designs were made in the 1970s are no deterrent to China’s 3,300 fighter jets developed in the 1990s and 2000s.
And after all, hasn’t the US repeatedly said that its commitment to come to the aid of the Philippines in case of conflict with China is “ironclad”?
The $5.58-billion figure is staggering. Equivalent at the current exchange rate to P320 billion, it represents the entire 2025 budget of the Philippine military (P315 billion) or nearly that of the health department (P354 billion).
The Philippines will be sacrificing severe cuts from the salaries of the military and for health care in order to buy fighter jets that will end up as burning scrap in a few hours in a war with China. We should emulate Vietnam, which has refused offers to buy US jets but has spent billions of pesos to strengthen its military garrisons in the islands and reefs it occupies in the South China Sea, and even installed 24 outposts on reefs, modified from oil rigs.
This is the second time that the US is pushing the Philippines to buy the F-16 jets of its biggest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. It offered the country in 2021 a deal for 12 jets at $2.43 billion, which President Duterte rejected.
Then-ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez claimed the offer was “too expensive.” Romualdez has now changed his tune, saying the other day, “The State Department approval for the sale of 20 F-16s to the Philippines is another significant sign of the US commitment to our strong alliance and the Trump administration’s deterrence through strength.” He said the Philippines would seek a long-term loan to finance the purchase. This is another foolish idea: Countries secure loans in order to improve their productive base so it can afford the interest rates on the debt, not to buy armaments which end up in the trash heap.
Fishy
I find it fishy that the State Department announced its approval of Marcos’ (or is it just Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr.’s) request just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s visit to the Philippines. Hegseth didn’t fly to the country for eight hours just to repeat his predecessors’ “ironclad” blah-blah. Was he tasked by Trump himself to tell Marcos: “This is a good deal, go for it, and we’re behind you. We might change Biden’s stance toward China and you if you don’t.”
It is naïve to think that Lockheed Martin sales do not have “commissions” that turn out, even in very circuitous ways, ending up in the pockets of the “signing authorities,”which in this case would be Marcos himself, or probably his defense secretary.
How much theoretically? In the $2.3-billion purchase of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the 1970s, the Sandiganbayan ruled that $50 million in commissions ended up with Marcos’ crony Herminio Disini. That is a staggering 21.7 percent of the cost. Would the F-16 purchase be the equivalent of the Bataan deal, the last big hurrah of two corrupt administrations?
A research by the Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence software Grok pointed out:
“Commissions on military arms sales typically range from 1 to 5 percent for legitimate fees ($10–$50 million on a $1 billion contract) but can reach 10-30 percent in corrupt deals ($100–$300 million on a $1 billion contract), as seen in historical cases like the BNPP ($17-$80 million, 0.7-3.5 percent), Lockheed’s 1970s scandals (2.5–2.8 percent) and Al Yamamah (30 percent). In the Philippine F-16 deal ($5.58 billion), commissions could theoretically be $55.8–$279 million, though the Foreign Military Sales program’s 3.5 percent surcharge ($195.3 million) is the only confirmed fee. The lack of transparency, compounded by the Philippines’ constrained media environment, mirrors historical patterns of corruption in arms sales, diverting resources from critical sectors like education and perpetuating systemic challenges in accountability.”
P5 billion
The $5.58-billion purchase of the 20 F-16 jets, using the 30-percent upper range of possible bribes would mean $87.4 billion in kickbacks, or P5 billion, an enormous amount which, if Marcos acquires it, would give him such a huge war chest to buy off the 2028 presidential elections.
Indeed, Lockheed Martin has been implicated in several high-profile bribery cases for the sales of its airplanes spanning from the 1950s to the 1990s. The most notorious of these was its $1.6-million bribe in 1976 given to Japan Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka to secure the sale of Lockheed Martin’s 21 TriStar airliners to the state-owned All Nippon Airways. Tanaka was removed from his position when the crime was disclosed by the media.
Already, military analysts are saying the contract price is overpriced. Bulgariamilitary.com reported:
“The [Philippine] transaction, which includes advanced weaponry and support systems, was certified to Congress by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, marking a significant step in modernizing the Philippine Air Force. At first glance, this appears to be a standard military sale to enhance a partner’s defense capabilities, particularly in the contested South China Sea.
But a closer look reveals an intriguing twist: the price tag per F-16 — averaging $279 million when factoring in the full package — nears the cost of the cutting-edge F-35, raising questions about value, economics and the shifting dynamics of global arms markets.”
Thailand
We should learn from the sad experience of Thailand in buying over 50 F-16s since 1988, which some sources say the US twisted the country to do, in order to boost the finances of Lockheed Martin. It cost an estimated $6 billion for Thailand to purchase its 50 F-16s. However, it has never used these in combat in its border clashes with Cambodia and Burma, as these were resolved through diplomacy even before the Thai government could mobilize the jets. Worse, a number of F-16s were lost over the years due to accidents and aging-related mechanical failures such that Thailand is now exploring to buy instead cheaper but modern jets such as the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen (estimated at $85 million per unit vs $121 million for an F-16) or the KAI KF-21 Boramae, South Korea’s next-gen 4.5/5th-gen fighter.
The Thais found that the F-16 maintenance costs, especially for the jets to have a specified number of flying hours to be considered combat-ready, were so high that over half the jets are no longer used, and those that could couldn’t be certified as combat-ready and used solely for training purposes.
What is so anomalous about this Lockheed Martin deal is that such purchase was not approved, nor even evaluated by Congress. The deal is probably doomed, as the Senate has become more and more truculent toward the Marcos administration, especially after the President ordered the kidnaping of former president Rodrigo Duterte, to be ignominiously turned over to the International Criminal Court.
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$5.6B F-16 purchase plan, a harebrained idea, huge graft plot or both?
Source: Breaking News PH
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