BROTHERS IN ARM: Zulkifli (left) greets Bautista as Zaki looks on. — Photos by Chimon Upon
KUCHING: The 12-day LAND MALPHI Exercise 13/12 involving the Malaysian and Philippines armies here was a great success.
Both Malaysian Army chief General Tan Sri Datuk Seri Zulkifli Zainal Abidin and Philippines Army commanding general Lt Gen Emmanuel T Bautista said the joint exercise, which ended yesterday, was fruitful and achieved its aims of developing commanders and staff at various levels in the aspects of planning and conduct of military operations, logistics and administrative procedures.
When closing the event Zulkifli said throughout the exercise, the participants representing both countries were exposed to standard operating procedures (SOP) and practised the concept of military operations especially in the conventional warfare setting in the Malaysian environment through the command post exercise and tactical exercise without troops.
He added the opportunity of a joint exercise was testimony of the enduring relationships between the armies of the two countries and that it would go a long way towards building trust and enhancing better understanding and relationships.
“Thus, this will increase the scope for further cooperation between our armies and countries because I am sure many would agree that coalition force operations seems to be the trend of current involvement of troops in operations,” he said.
In order to produce a credible and professional military force, he said, there was a need to have exercises between friendly forces to test their areas of expertise and enable joint operations.
“It is also our hope that this form of exercises will be able to inculcate the spirit of cooperation and sharpen our military skills and professionalism to achieve our common goals and missions.
“It is with this understanding that I believe LAND MALPHI Exercise has met its objectives by providing us with the opportunity to be deployed together and also to foster our existing bonds, comradeship and cooperation at a higher plane,” he said.
He added that the exercise also provided an opportunity for the participants to meet and understand each other’s culture, work ethics and military procedures.
Bautista also spoke at the closing ceremony, which ended with the removal of the exercise armbands from the team leaders.
Among those present were First Division Army commander Major Gen Datuk Mohd Zaki Mokhtar and Third Infantry Brigade commander Brigadier Gen Datuk Redzuan Baharuddin.