Philippines To Upgrade Navy Base Facing Disputed Waters

The Philippines is to upgrade a navy base facing disputed South China Sea waters to serve the extra ships being acquired to protect its territory, the military said Thursday.

Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Fabic said the military would build a 500-million-peso ($11.2 million) port at Ulugan Bay, the Philippine military base nearest to the Spratly Islands.

“It is being programmed for capability upgrade ... we need to develop it to house the big vessels of the navy,” he told reporters.

Philippine sailors stand in front of the newly-commissioned Hamilton-class cutter Gregorio del Pilar in Manila on Dec. 14, 2011. The Philippines plans to upgrade a navy base facing disputed South China Sea waters to serve the extra ships being acquired to protect its territory, the military said Thursday. (Ted Aljibe / AFP/Getty Images

President Benigno Aquino is set to visit the base on May 20 to launch the upgrading, Fabic added.

The base on the west coast of Palawan Island is the headquarters of naval forces guarding the waters on the west of the archipelago.

In recent years, the Philippines has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with China involving disputed reefs and islands in the Spratlys and other areas of the South China Sea.

Under a program designed to improve the capability of one of Asia’s weakest military forces, the Philippines has been acquiring naval vessels to create what the government described as a “credible deterrent” to protect its territorial integrity.

The navy has acquired two refurbished American coastguard frigates in the past two years, and they now lead patrols in the South China Sea.

The navy wants to acquire up to six more to guard the country’s long coastline effectively, armed forces chief of staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista announced in January.

In 2012 the Gregorio del Pilar, one of the two refurbished frigates, confronted Chinese ships on Scarborough Shoal, a small outcrop just off the coast of the country’s main island of Luzon.

The Chinese eventually gained control of the outcrop after Manila backed down. However, the Manila government sought UN arbitration to settle the dispute, a move rejected by China.

Last month the Philippines lodged a protest after the Chinese coast guard allegedly attacked Filipino fishermen off the shoal with water cannon on Jan. 27. Beijing rejected the protest.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including waters near the coasts of its neighbors.

Bangladesh gets its first Hamilton class cutter

 

Bangladesh navy frigate Somudro Joy (F-28) at Pearl Harbor in 2013

 

DHAKA, Bangladesh, May 30 (UPI) -- Bangladesh received it first decommissioned Hamilton class cutter from the U.S. Coast Guard at a ceremony on Coast Guard Island in Alameda, Calif.

The Coast Guard transferred the 3,300-ton cutter, formerly the USCGC Jarvis, to a 20-member team from the Bangladeshi navy.

The Jarvis -- decommissioned in October and renamed BNS Somudro Joy -- was sold to Bangladesh as an excess defense article through a foreign military sales program, the Bangladeshi news website bdnews24.com reported.

At the ceremony were U.S. Coast Guard Vice Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, Cmdr. Coast Guard Pacific Area and Chief of Naval Staff for the Bangladeshi navy Vice Adm. Muhammad Farid Habib, a report by the Bangladesh military website bdmilitary.com said.

The ship's commanding officer Capt. Mohammad Nazmul Karim arrived in Alameda in March to begin preparations to accept the Jarvis. Another 70 crew members arrived this month.

Around 26 former Jarvis crew members will advise the Bangladeshi crew until Somudro Joy sails for Bangladesh this year.

The 378-foot Somudro Joy, which has a helicopter landing deck and hangar, is powered by two Pratt and Whitney gas turbines and two Fairbanks-Morse diesel engines.

The Bangladeshi navy said the guided missile frigate, now the largest vessel in the fleet, will receive a further refit and upgrades after arriving in Bangladesh, bdmilitary.com reported.

Planned upgrades include boosting the vessel's combat capability with more AShM and SAM launchers.

 

The Jarvis was built by Avondale Shipyards and commissioned in 1972 and will be replaced by Legend class National Security Cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Somudro Joy joins the BNS Bangabandhu guided missile frigate built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in the South Korea and commissioned in 2001.

In January, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina commissioned the BNS Padma, the first Bangladeshi-built warship, at the Titumir Naval Base, near Khunla, around 90 miles south of Dhaka.

The 160-foot frigate cost around $7.4 million and has four 37mm and two 20mm cannons, the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency reported.

At the commissioning, Hasina said the navies of China, India and Myanmar are becoming more active in the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh needs the Padma to protect its coastal waters.

Hasina also said the country is on target to purchase two submarines but didn't say where the vessels would come from.

Activities are going on to purchase two submarines from a friendly country," she told Parliament while replying to a written question on her government's efforts to modernize the navy, army and air force.