Australia and partners plan Philippine defence coordination centre as security ties deepen
Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the United States have committed to establishing a combined defence coordination centre in the Philippines as they expand military cooperation. The commitment appears in a joint statement released on November 10 following a meeting of the four countries’ defence leaders in Cebu on October 28.
The centre is a planned initiative, not a facility whose opening has been announced. The statement does not specify its location, budget, staffing or starting date. It also does not set out detailed operational functions, so those arrangements should not be treated as settled.
Coordinated investment and more complex exercises
Alongside the centre, the four governments committed to coordinating defence investments to help the Philippines defend its archipelago. They also agreed to stronger consultations among ministers and senior policy officials, and to widen the scope, complexity and frequency of combined exercises and cooperative activities.
The leaders said the initiatives would build on the Defence Cooperation Council framework and recent activities including Balikatan, Keen Sword and regular maritime cooperative activities. Their stated aims are stronger deterrence, better ability to operate together and a stable, secure region.
The Cebu meeting brought together Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., Japanese Defence Minister Koizumi Shinjiro and US defence chief Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus.
Bilateral framework being modernised
The multilateral plans sit alongside a separate effort to update the Australia-Philippines bilateral defence framework. At their August 7 meeting in Darwin, Marles and Teodoro welcomed progress towards a Defence Cooperation Arrangement intended to replace and modernise the 1995 memorandum on defence cooperation, following a statement of intent signed in 2025.
That August statement described the proposed arrangement as the contemporary bilateral defence framework. It also recorded work on defence infrastructure, combined capabilities and interoperability. Both ministers explicitly said the Philippines would retain full sovereignty over all its sites.
The two ministers also welcomed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance cooperation, including Philippine support for Australia’s MC-55A Peregrine capability and practical access arrangements. They discussed participation in Balikatan, Pitch Black and Carabaroo in 2026 and Alon in 2027. These existing commitments should not be confused with unpublished final terms of the updated arrangement.
South China Sea concerns and diplomatic engagement
In the November statement, the four defence leaders repeated their concerns about the East China Sea and South China Sea and opposed unilateral actions involving force or coercion that raise tensions. This is the position expressed by the four governments, rather than a declaration that a new operational alliance or automatic defence obligation has been created.
The August bilateral statement stressed freedom of navigation, lawful use of the sea and peaceful dispute settlement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It referred to the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling and raised concerns about dangerous encounters involving Chinese and Philippine vessels. China has rejected that ruling, a continuing point of disagreement in the region.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s November 10 travel announcement confirms plans to meet President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila and mark 80 years of diplomatic relations. The broader visit covers the ASEAN-Australia Summit and East Asia Summit, linking defence engagement with trade, investment and regional diplomacy.