Wouldn't Singapore be a good ally to the RP? their armed forces are strong and modern and they too mistrust Malaysia. With Singapore as an ally,we could stress our claim to sabah even easier.

Finally someone with sense!!!! :mademyd:

nope it doesnt make sense....

Forget the Sabah claim, because it will never happen. No matter what justification we can dig up, we as a nation still have a lot of issues to settle in our own backyard. Nationalism is fine, but don't ever mix it up with arrogance. Let us settle what we have in front of us now first before we even think of such adventurism. All in all, Singapore is indeed an ally and pretty obvious at that.

The best thing my Kababayans should do since we are their ally is to put aside all that nationalistic pride and learn from all our neighbors for a change. This I am sure will help our nation and our neighbors out too (that way no more TNT's from our home to theirs) in the long run.

JFK once said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country".

It's high time some of us step down from our so called high horse.

I'm not arrogant but only trying to restore our conutry's true size. This has nothing to do with siiting on a high horse. I guess lots of us lack the necessary nationalosm.

Hmmm....... Seeing this discussion and reading some of the comments on the forums, I feel that contributing some of my own ideas and experiences. Some may know that I come from Singapore, thus most of my discussion will be in the light of the Singapore armed forces, and my own 2 yrs + 3yrs conscript and reservist . By no means I'm trying to start a flame war...............

I have seen many pinoys here venting their fustration upon the govts lack interest and lack funding to improve the Philippines military service. This have been further worsen by corruption....... This is wat I think, a strong credible military is needed to protect the country and defend it's interest....BUT one must not forget a country doesn't survive solely to satisfy the military interest( unless it is N. Korea). Sufficient funding must also go to various other minsteries, especially education, to improve the overall well-being of the country. If not, one might end up like the then Soviet Union.

Secondly, I have seen many complain why can't just get some commercial off the shelf items and mix them together to create 'an indigenious Philippines products'. Wat i can say, is that creating a weapon even with COTS, is not like playing with photoshop. Advance equipment comes with many years of learning and mastering the techniques. I have seen some ppls advocating going Russian or even going Chinese, bcos their weapons seems to have more firepower and better statistics, even better price(SU-30, BMP-3)..... For me, I think it is a NO NO. All weapon vending countries are just merely businessmen. They dun care whether ur troops knoe how to maintain or use the weapons, whether they fit ur doctrine or watever. They are onli interested in the money. Especially the Russian weapons capabilites seem to be a little exaggerated. Yes, their planes may fly faster, fire BVR missiles that have greater range, and is cheaper.......... BUT do you all knoe that Russian gears need more maintainence and over-hauling compared to American designs and they are 'fuel-consumption kings'. Can you imagine, Philippines with such a big territorial areas, if the combat radius of the plane is small and needs extensive maintainence,........during a real conflict, where air forces plays a prime role, u will gonna lose out!

Now, back to my experience of handling some of the rifles I used before during my short service...... Basically, I have fired 2 Singapore designed weapons namely the SAR-21, Ultimax-100 and SFG-87 FRAG grenades........1 license-produced weapon M-16S1 and lastly, the Swedish 84mm anti-tank recoiless rifle. I will go into detail of how Singapore went abt getting the two weapons mentioned above from drawings to the real weapons in production. Basically, the M-16 were license-produced to satisfy the need for a basic infantry rifle. During my father's era, which is the late 60s, they used the AR-15(yar, the types with conical muzzles and no forward assistance mechanism) and the MARK4. The latter was purchase at a dumping prize from the New Zealand army together with the older generation jungle belts, boots, tin-helmets and 20 round magazines. My father used to tell me how long and crappy the MARK4 is, which is basically a type of bolt action rifle, and how hard it is to go bashing through the vegetation with it. He also lament those first generation donated gears are either too badly woren out, or worse, it is too big for a typical skinny Asian. It is quite comical then, to see the early generation conscripts charging abt, at the same time supporting their pants or helmets to prevent them from falling off!!! Thus all this short comings, make Singapore to invest more money into the military to ratify this problems and at the same time to be slightly more self-reliant...... Soon, Singapore went from license producing M-16 to buying the blueprints of weapons and go abt modifying them to suit the requirement. Then, came out the SAR-80 which is not well received by the troops as they are slightly heavier than the M-16 with comparable accuracy. SAR-88 was the first true indigenious designed and made weapons, but it is also not used instead it was used for foreign sales. Lastly the SAR-21. I have personally fired the 2 GEN and 3 GEN SAR-21. Basically, wat I liked abt it, is that it is shorter than the M-16, thus easier to negotiat thru thick vegetation. It has also considerable lesser amount of recoil than the M-16. It is also easier to handle the weapon in a prone, standing-shoulder position due to the shorter length. Being shorter, it is easier to use during urban warfare trainings. Wat I dun like....... that weapon is a little heavy, lacks a bayonet lugs and the hand guard cracks easily. The 3 GEN ratify the hand guard issue and I heard the 4 GEN comes with a bayonet lugs+a better iron-sight to be used as a contigency. So you see, getting things right and a proper design weapons doesnt happen overnite. It is not likes some fairytale come true. Thus for Philippines patience+determinations is the ONLI way to success.

And how do you propose we do that? Have you taken a hard look at what we have to offer and where we are now? How real can we all be?