Maritime security and joint defence production are now firmly on the table between India and the Philippines — and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh used the world's most consequential multilateral defence forum to make that point in person. On the sidelines of the 13th ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) in Cebu, Philippines, Singh met Secretary of National Defense Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, to take stock of a bilateral partnership that is quietly growing in strategic weight.

What Singh and Teodoro put on the table in Cebu

Singh described the meeting as 'productive,' saying both sides 'reviewed our ongoing defense cooperation and discussed avenues to further strengthen our strategic partnership, particularly focusing on maritime security and joint defense production.' The language is deliberately specific: maritime security nods to shared anxieties about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, while joint defence production signals ambitions that go well beyond buyer-seller transactions. The Philippines is among a growing cohort of Southeast Asian nations exploring co-development and manufacturing arrangements with India as New Delhi pushes hard to become a credible defence exporter.

Singh closed with a framing that has become a signature of India's Indo-Pacific posture: 'India remains committed to fostering a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.' Those three adjectives — free, open, inclusive — are not accidental. They constitute a deliberate counter-narrative to any claim of exclusive dominance over regional sea lanes, and they resonate especially with a nation like the Philippines that faces direct maritime pressure.

ADMM-Plus: the forum that makes this meeting count

The ADMM-Plus, established in 2010, brings together defence ministers from the 10 ASEAN states plus eight dialogue partners — among them India, the United States, China, Japan, and Australia. It is precisely the kind of multilateral architecture India has sought to embed itself in as part of its Act East Policy, launched in 2014, which repositioned India's engagement with ASEAN from a peripheral relationship to a strategic priority. Bilateral pull-asides on the sidelines of ADMM-Plus are where real business often gets done, away from the constraints of formal plenary communiqués.

Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr., who took charge as the Philippines' Secretary of National Defense in 2023, has overseen an accelerated modernisation of the country's armed forces and an active search for diversified defence partnerships. His engagement with Singh fits that pattern precisely.

India's Act East momentum and the Indo-Pacific stakes

India has steadily deepened defence ties across ASEAN through capacity-building, training exchanges, and — increasingly — hardware and technology transfers. The emphasis on joint defence production in the Singh–Teodoro conversation aligns with India's broader Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) drive, which has set ambitious targets for domestic defence manufacturing and export growth. Pairing that industrial ambition with a partner that shares strategic concerns about regional maritime order gives the bilateral a convergence of interests that is both economic and geopolitical.

Watch for follow-up announcements on specific co-production projects or structured training exchanges in the weeks after Cebu — that is where the diplomatic language of 'avenues to further strengthen' typically translates into signed frameworks.