I suspect they do not plan for defence capabilities based on emotion...
To inject some realism into this discussion, the Philippines has an annual defence budget of $1.42b per year. This is simply an unrealistic amount with which to operate a modern fighter capability in addition to all the other defence capabilities the Philippines requires.
As an example how insufficient this is, New Zealand spends $1.7b per year on her military and cannot afford it, despite having a far small military force to fund, than that which the Philippines is obliged to maintain due to operational requirements.
1. F-5's are an aging fighter jet with limited capabilities in the modern environment. Because of their age they are increasingly difficult and expensive to operate and they provide an ever decreasing return on the investment with their obsolesence increasing as the years go by. They are a 50 year old fighter design, afterall...
2. Is it irresponsible of the Government to withdraw funding that is maintaining an obsolete capability and investing it in capability which your military desperately requires for current operations? I haven't seen the Philippines suffer greatly because they are unable to conduct modern air combat operations in recent years, but they certainly HAVE suffered because of inadequate maritime patrol and interception capabilities, insufficient land warfare and maneuver capability and insufficient night fighting and other tactical capabilities.
The sad reality is that EVERY military suffers from funding and resource shortages for what some see as "essential" capabilities. You obviously don't care much for the idea, but Philippines military doesn't have the funding to meet it's current requirements. Trying to acquire one of the most expensive lead in fighter training jets available, isn't going to do much to help that budget...
No, that is a simplistic way of looking at things. A defence force has to judge it's priorities by weighing up many competing requirements and assessing the available resources to try and meet those requirements.
You see the problem of having only a limited military control of your airspace as your most pressing issue, despite an active insurgency in your own country and porous maritime borders you cannot adequately control.
I see a military control of your airspace as far LESS of a problem, mostly because there is no current operational tasking for your air force that it's current resources cannot manage, ie: you are not involved in a shooting war with a Country that has a strong air combat capability, nor are you likely to be any time soon.
However your tactical land and maritime patrol capabilities most definitely fall short of the capability the Philippines requires AND both are actively engaged in operational taskings...
Now, it would be lovely if in one fell swoop your Government authorised a massive budget increase and authorised the acquisition of capabilities designed to address all of the Philippines defence requirements, but this seems pretty unlikely.
So like every other nation on Earth, you require a plan to develop your forces within the realistic resources constraints that you have and will continue to have, over a period of time. I would suggest that if you were able to take emotion out of this discussion, addressing the urgent operational requirements of forces engaged on operations would be the highest priority of any force and less operationally useful capabilities would be "down the pecking order" somewhat...
Well you're about $20b short for Israel and about $160b above what the Philippines GDP (official exchange rate) actually is, but that hardly matters because GDP ain't everything.
For starters, GDP is NOT what the Government has available to spend. GDP is the value of the total sum of all the goods and services produced within a country in a single year. Philippines therefore produced a total of $161b worth of goods and services in 2009, according to the CIA world fact book. (I only use official exchange rate, because for military equipment you ARE going to be purchasing from overseas).
As an example, Australia's GDP is currently beyond $1.19 Trillion per year. The Australian Government's revenue however was "only" $291 Billion in 2009. The Philippines Government revenue for 2009 was announced as $23.56b. Philippine government expenditure however was $29b, meaning your Government spent $6b it had to borrow elsewhere. This means you have a budget deficit (and a pretty massive one at that, being more than a quarter of total Government revenue per year) of $6b last year and I suspect probably as much this year, because of the global financial crisis.
So, taking into account a massive Government budget deficit of more than a quarter of your entire revenue per year, a national debt of more than twice your entire Government revenue per year (which you have to pay back at some point if you wish for these loans to continue), where do you expect your Government to find the cash to invest in a new fleet of lead in jet trainers that do virtually nothing to address the capability gaps your current military has identified through it's involvement in on-going military operations?
On top of which, these aircraft provide little to no capability to address an entirely separate requirement that you say is so important, ie: air defence for your Country?
Well, this is a defence forum. World Affairs board exists, if you wish to debate national political issues. TYhe topic of this thread is a lack of fighter capability. Let's stick to that and discuss if it's credible any time soon, shall we?
This seems to be my point, all along. The exception being that I don't believe the Philippines can address the issues in nearly every aspect of it's military forces at the current time, nor indeed in the near future, unless Government revenue somehow goes through the roof, or some other country, decides to provide such on the Philippines behalf.
What it MIGHT be able to do, is incrementally modernise aspects of it's defence capability over the next few years and as I've stated continually, any such modernisation, needs to address the urgent operational requirements the Philippines has. You will not find ANY actual military person who will argue that investing in jet fighters, whilst your troops are engaged in ACTUAL operations, ie: combat, without the equipment they need to do so effectively, is a wise investment if they will venture an honest opinion.
Well I'm sure you know about the S-211's. These can be armed with the same basic armament as the M346 and can perform a basic air intercept role. This is not going to be sufficient against a modern jet fighter, say for argument sake, an SU-30 Sukhoi, but then neither does a M346 and it will still allow for some control of the air to be practiced and enforced, as well as a light strike capability.
The S-211 is a reasonably capable lead in fighter and I know that the AFP is continuing to issue contracts for maintenance, overhauls etc for this aircraft type.
As to light strike capability, well this looks like something that the Philippines might be able to afford, within the next few years...
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7017/tope4161yk5.jpg
And why haven't you had it since 2005? Because they can barely afford to run the fleet of S-211's that they DO have. F-5's weren't affordable and Philippines, whilst still conducting some maintenance and overhaul activities cannot afford to fly it's fleet of S-211's. So whilst the M346 could no doubt do a slightly better job than the S-211, it's unafffordable if you cannot even afford to run S-211's.
With $1.4b a year for your entire force, you will never be operating a 4th or 5th gen fighter.
Thailand's initial purchase price for 6x Gripen's and a single SAAB AEW&C aircraft, was USD$600m. That sum doesn't include operating these aircraft, year to year. On top of this price, you'd need to add approximately USD$50m per year to operate these aircraft.
Super Hornet's are more expensive to operate than Gripen's and no less expensive in initial purchase price...
Philippines cannot currently afford to operate more than S-211's within it's defence budget and even these are largely grounded for lack of spares.
Again, where is the money supposed to come from?
I may be wrong, but last I saw, the Philippines had 2x S-211's in flyable condition. These are not a costly aircraft to support nor are they particularly hard to acquire spares for, as evidenced by Singapore's relatively large fleet of these aircraft.
I'm sorry, but if they can't do better than 2x S-211's then you are simply day-dreaming when you consider acquiring M346 and a 4th/5th gen fighter is a realistic prospect in the near future...
Newer aircraft are generally less maintenance intensive than older aircraft this is true, but they aren't always cheaper to maintain and they most certainly are NOT cheaper than aircraft you already have in your inventory.
If you can't afford to maintain these at a reasonable level then you simply cannot afford anything more substantial.
:. Whats happens next with regards to the RMAF is anyones's guess. According to Marhalim Abbas in his malaysiandefence blog, the Europeans are putting forward an attractive proposal for the Eurofighter. The RMAF's preference I believe is still the Super Hornet.