A new ammunition manufacturing hub in the Philippines, funded by the United States and intended for joint use by American and Filipino forces, has already been quietly approved, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr revealed during a visit to Washington this week.
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The Philippine leader told reporters after his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House that the plan for the facility had been agreed upon “almost a year ago”.
Marcos added that the move aligned with Manila’s long-standing ambitions, saying on Tuesday: “The manufacture of ammunition is something the Philippine government had long wanted to do even without outside help. [The US] offered to help, so we will do that.”
The facility is set to be built beside Subic Bay, where a former US naval base north of Manila once housed the largest American military installation in Asia before it was closed in the early 1990s and converted into a free port.
The revelation confirms that the project – seen by both sides as a keystone of defence and economic cooperation – has advanced beyond preliminary discussion. However, it has already stirred domestic political opposition, most notably from Marcos’ own deputy and estranged political rival.
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A day earlier, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio urged Filipinos to reject the project after Jose Manuel Romualdez, Philippine ambassador to Washington and a cousin of Marcos, touted it as a “good way of being able to help a combination of both defence and economic cooperation”.