TOKYO/MANILA -- Since the U.S. approved the potential sale of 12 F-16 fighter jets to the Philippines in 2021, Manila has been contending with the question of how to finance the costly purchase.
"It's still too expensive, so we have to find a way to be able to finance it in the long term. We want to change our [economic] growth," Jose Manuel Romualdez, Philippine ambassador to the U.S., told Nikkei Asia in an interview this month.