Duterte Oks acquisition of 15 more Black Hawks

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte has approved the acquisition of 15 Black Hawk helicopters for the military, weeks after soldiers and militiamen died in a crash in Bukidnon.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said addressing the deficiencies in the military’s capabilities was one of the topics discussed during the Cabinet meeting last Wednesday in Malacañang.

“I would also like to report that the President has approved the acquisition of 15 Black Hawk helicopters as part of plans to slowly address the growing heli-lift deficiency of our armed forces and number two, decommission all Huey helicopters,” Nograles said at a press briefing yesterday.

“You will recall that seven of our soldiers died when a Huey helicopter crashed in Bukidnon last Jan. 16. This was the fourth such crash, since July of last year.

And the President wants to end all these tragic deaths. Our servicemen and their families deserve better,” he added.

He said the Hueys of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) are “due for retirement,” noting that the first one took flight 64 years ago.

“The Hueys being used by the PAF are older than me,” the 44-year-old Nograles said.

Nograles said the government needs to have at least 55 helicopters to cover the Philippines’ more than 7,000 islands with a total land area of 300,000 square kilometers, but acquisition targets have been lowered due to limited time and the constraints caused by the pandemic.

“The Department of National Defense in fact, says that we actually require a total of 76 helicopters. And while the President initially agreed to acquiring 55 new helicopters, that number has been managed and in fact reduced to 15 owing to the challenges that we currently face,” the Cabinet official said.

“We don’t know if it will come before the President physically steps down by June 30 or it will be inherited by the new president. Again, it’s a lot of things that need to still be discussed and ironed out,” he added.

Six Polish-made Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk combat utility helicopters were delivered to the Air Force last November.