The Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) and the United States Marine Corps (USMC) have finished their annual marine exercise with a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, the Philippine military said on Friday.

In a statement, the PMC said Philippine Navy chief Vice Admiral Adeluis Bordado, who was the guest honor in the ceremony, declared that the objectives of the exercise have been achieved.

“We were able to strengthen and improve both countries’ readiness in crisis response, littoral and coastal defense operations, and combined interoperability in internal security, counter-terrorism, and HADR (humanitarian assistance and disaster response) operations,” Bordado said.

For him, this year’s marine exercise is among the Philippines’ most productive joint exercise as it helped PMC to become a highly capable amphibious force in readiness for archipelagic defense.

USMC chief Lieutenant General Steven Rudder pointed out that these trainings improve the ability of the military as he looked forward to more exercises with the Philippines.

“By training together, we boost our joint ability to enhance mission defense and respond to natural disasters,” he said.

In Tawi-Tawi under the Western Mindanao Command, the marines conducted extensive HADR training, medical subject matter expert exchange, visit, board, search, seizure, jungle operations, casualty evacuation, close quarter training, boat raid, and vertical assaults using USMC’s MV-22 Osprey Tiltrotor.

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JOVILAND RITA, GMA News / gmanetwork.com