New US ship set to visit Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - Another US vessel will visit the country even as salvage teams have yet to fully extricate the warship that ran aground in Tubbataha Reef in January.

USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the US Seventh Fleet,  is scheduled to dock Thursday at the Manila South Harbor for a routine port call.

In a statement, the US Embassy said the port call and goodwill visit “highlights the strong historic, community, and military connections between the United States and the Philippines.”

The USS Blue Ridge, which was commissioned in 1970, last visited the Philippines in March 2012.

The visit will be held almost two months after US warship USS Guardian got stuck in the Tubbataha Reef off Palawan.

The 1,300-ton, 68-meter-long USS Guardian ran aground dawn of Jan. 17 at the reef’s south atoll. The ship was reportedly on its way to Puerto Princesa after a port call in Subic Bay when the incident happened.

The US Navy has blamed “faulty navigation chart data” for the accident but some sectors believe the incident was caused by human error.

Transportation Sec. Joseph Abaya previously said he has been hearing theories that US sailors manning the ship may have had too much “rest and recreation” in Subic.

Tubbataha, which spans 130,028 hectares, was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1993.

Despite the damage in the reef, the crew members of the USS Guardian may not land in jail due to practices granting immunity to foreign vessels

The US has apologized for the accident and has vowed to help rehabilitate the reef.

The USS Blue Ridge is under the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, whose area of responsibility includes 35 countries. Five of the seven U.S. Mutual Defense Treaties are with countries within its area namely Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand. 

There are around 70 ships, 200 aircraft and 40,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel assigned to the fleet. – Alexis Romero