All swells in the Navy

Considered as the country’s chief maritime territorial defense force, the Philippine Navy boldly faces the rough seas and challenges from internal and external threats. That is, with the whole of government strategy. The Navy joins forces with the Philippine Coast Guard for safety at sea, the Police Maritime Group for crimes in the high seas while the ships of the Bureau of Fishery and Aquatic Resources keep watch on our fishing grounds.

With bigger and better armed foreign intruders and other interlopers, our 25,000-strong men and women of the Philippine Navy count upon country team support to defend our territorial waters. Their 125th founding anniversary theme “Guardians of the Sea” aptly describes the Philippine Navy. Buoyed – metaphorically speaking – by the P10-billion modernization program, the Navy looks beyond the horizon of getting better equipment and greater capacity to meet these challenges ahead.

In our “Kapihan sa Manila Bay” last Wednesday, Chief of Naval Staff Rear Admiral Jose Ma. Ambrosia Ezpeleta and Philippine Fleet Deputy Commander, Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad, highlighted the major “milestones” of the naval branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Through these years, Ezpeleta and Trinidad believe the Navy has been more empowered to protect the maritime and archipelagic boundaries of the country.

In fact, two Israel-made “fast-attack interdiction crafts” will be officially commissioned to the country’s fleet of warships as part of the Navy anniversary highlights. Trinidad disclosed several more fast-attack interdiction crafts are scheduled for delivery to the Navy starting this year up to the year 2028 coming from Israel.

According to him, 17 Navy’s personnel trained for one year in Israel on how to operate and do the preventive maintenance of these crafts. They will now be the ones to run the newly refurbished San Felipe Naval Base in Cavite, shipyard. “We want to capacitate our personnel on how to assemble and repair our assets and have the capability to maintain it,” Trinidad pointed out.

In the presence of their Commander-in-chief, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM), they will also show off their frigates’ surface-to-air missile (SAM) capability during the anniversary program scheduled on May 26 at the Navy headquarters along Roxas Boulevard.

“We will continue to protect our territory. The Philippine Navy continues to upgrade. We maintain to be the vanguards of our territory,” Ezpeleta vowed. Trinidad flaunts the Navy’s strengthening recruitment program for technical people with knowledge in computers, information technology experts, and with background in engineering.

“We are entering the missile capability stage compared to more than ten years back when we were operating with dilapidated vessels. We are very capable now in terms of number of ships, trainings and all,” Trinidad stressed. From the “mano-mano” (manual) of the ship canyons being carried by 6 to 8 crew members, the naval assets “now are just push buttons” to operate, Trinidad added.

Without going into details, the Navy has over 100 units of naval assets that include new corvettes and cyclone class ships, planes and remote-controlled mounted machine guns and SAMs on the new Navy ships. All, except for the BRP Sierra Madre anchored in the disputed Ayungin Shoal, the remaining “vintage ships” and “legacy” vessels that saw action during Vietnam and Korean Wars and as far back as World War II have been decommissioned.

By way of a joke, Ezpeleta and Trinidad wisecracked that the decommissioned “vintage ships” were much older than them when they first entered the Navy service. After they graduated from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in 1991, they were so dismayed at the sorry state of the Navy ships that they initially joined the Marines instead.

Adm. Ezpeleta recalled the early beginnings of the Navy Bureau when the late Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo unfurled the Philippine flag on board the Spanish warship on May 28, 1898 following Spain’s defeat to the United States (US) naval armada led by American hero, Commodore George Dewey. Quoting from historical accounts of Britannica, Aguinaldo supposedly reached out with the Americans and offered the Filipino resistance group in the military campaign against Spain as their common enemy.

Dewey was said to have also advised Aguinaldo that should they destroy the power of Spain, the hoisting of a Philippine National Flag would appear more important and credible in the eyes of the world and the US in particular.

After leading the Filipino soldiers’ offensive against the Spanish forces, Aguinaldo subsequently declared Philippine Independence on June 12 and proclaimed self as President of the Republic. This did not sit well though with the US. As later events unfolded, this led to Philippine-US war.

Fast forward.

The Philippine government approved four additional sites for our existing Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the US. Under the 2014 EDCA, we allowed American military forces to make use of our five existing military bases. In the four new EDCA sites, Ezpeleta noted, two are Navy military lands, namely, the Naval Base Camilo Osias and at the Balabac Island in Palawan. The two new other EDCA sites are the Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan, and the Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Isabela.

The existing Navy base in Balabac Island, which is located at the remote southwestern tip of the island of Palawan, is a big island closest to the disputed Spratly Islands in the West Philippine Sea. Ezpeleta reiterated the Navy abides by the Philippine commitment to the Code of Conduct over the disputed islands, islets, atolls, reefs, shoals and rocks in the West Philippine Sea.

A constant source of irritants between the Philippines and China, our Navy vows to keep in full speed their close tactical watch in and around our maritime and territorial borders. Behind the white ships of our Coast Guard, the gray ships of the Philippine Navy sail along to protect the Filipino fishing boats and other Philippine-flagged ships.

All swells, our Navy chants. Hooyah!