PCG’s high-speed response boats deployed in Western Mindanao

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard has deployed four new high-speed response boats or HSRB as part of the PCG’s maritime security enhancement in Western Mindanao.

The boats – HSRBs 023, 024, 027 and 028 – were received and blessed during a ceremony led by Commodore Marco Antonio Gines, chief of the Coast Guard District Southwestern Mindanao and CGD Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The watercraft were part of the 40 units procured by the PCG from a local ship-building company in Cebu.

Gines said the HSRBs were fitted with two outboard diesel-fed engines and designed to respond to critical situations.

The HSRBs have mounts for machine guns of different calibers and other protective armaments.

Gines said the newly acquired assets would boost the external defense operations of the military’s Joint Task Force Poseidon in Mindanao.

He said two of the boats would be deployed in the BARMM and the rest would secure the seas in Western Mindanao, which the PCG said is the most challenging area of its operation.

“If we take out the WPS issue in the picture, the most challenging coast guard sector area is in this part of the region,” Gines said, referring to the West Philippine Sea.