Manila’s military was one of the most poorly equipped in Asia when President Rodrigo Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, began a modest modernization program in 2012 — but it is still no match for its superpower neighbor China.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana offered few details about the nearly $375 million contract awarded to BrahMos Aerospace to supply an onshore anti-ship missile system to the Philippine Navy.

BrahMos — a joint venture between India and Russia — has developed a cruise missile that the Indian defense ministry says is the fastest in the world.

The Philippines would be the first country to purchase it. India’s defense ministry declined to comment.

The deal involves three batteries, training for operators and maintainers as well as logistics support, Lorenzana said on Facebook where he posted a copy of the “Notice of Award.”

Duterte has been seeking to acquire missile systems for the Philippine military under a modernization program called “Second Horizon.”

“It’s part of our territorial defense,” said Col. Ramon Zagala, spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The system would act as a deterrent to potential aggressors because “you can hit the target from far off,” he told AFP.

Military analyst and historian Jose Antonio Custodio told AFP the system would likely be stationed on the western side of the main island of Luzon or on Palawan island, but he ruled out the Spratly islands due to the “lack of concealment.”

Tensions over the South China Sea spiked last year, with Manila and Beijing accusing each other of territorial violations.

China claims almost all of the waterway, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, with competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Beijing has ignored a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that its historical claim is without basis.

Agarwal – employed at BrahMos Aerospace – was arrested on the charges of espionage and leaking the highly-classified defence information to Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence.

“His interrogation has revealed that he was promised better job prospects by the handlers who posed as women and honey-trapped him. These accounts have been traced to Pakistan,” said an official.

The sleuths have started investigating his bank accounts and those of his relatives to see if any money was sent by the Pak handlers.

“While the money wouldn’t have followed an official channel, but still his bank accounts will be probed to ascertain if there are unexplained funds deposits or transfers,” the official said.

Agarwal would often flaunt about his job profile and his achivements on social media, which led the Pak handlers to easily trap him.

“Though he was working on a sensitive project that involved national security, he had put out his professional details, including his rank, profile, the nature of the job he handled on social media and professional networking website. This could have been picked up by those trying to look for potential contacts in the Indian defence establishment to get data on country technology,” said an official.

Aggarwal was tasked to supervise the new projects at BrahMos’ Nagpur and Pilani facilities and was exposed to a lot of classified data, said officials.

ISI seems to be interested in getting information on the new missle technology being developed by India and Russia jointly.

ATS team from UP has arrived in Hyderabad to investigate about Agarwal’s previous employers.

According to ANI agency and reports of Indian Defence News, Nishant Agarwal – former student of NIT Kurukshetra and ‘youngest’ scientist of BrahMos Aerospace Nagpur, was arrested by a unit of Uttar Pradesh ATS and Maharashtra Police on the charges of espionage and leaking the highly-classified defence information to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

According to reports, the accused completed his internship from IIT – Roorkee and Indian Oil Corporation Limited. Later, he was employed as a scientist by BrahMos Aerospace.

The investigations are under way.

BrahMos is India’s most advanced missile system developed in collaboration with Russia.

BrahMos is a medium-range ramjet supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarine, ships, aircraft, or land. It is the fastest cruise missile in the world.