PN’s most powerful ship found sub in waters of Palawan last year

January 16, 2020

The Philippine Navy's most powerful ship detected a submerged submarine off the waters of Palawan last year.

This was revealed by the Philippine Navy Flag Officer in Command (FOIC) Vice Admiral Robert Empedrad in an interview with reporters in Taguig on Thursday night.

"Maybe we haven't mentioned this, but for the first time  (BRP) Conrado Yap (PS-39) was able to detect submarines while traveling in Palawan," he said.

"They were able to detect a submarine. This is the first time it happened to our Navy, very exciting. According to their report it's a US submarine. I'm not sure we will publish the report later on," he added.

Empedrad said PS-39 was on its show of flag mission when it detected the submarine in 2019.

"It is when our vessel had its show of flag mission, like what i have said if you remove the ocean in the Philippines you may see 50 submarines around us,  it's very challenging to detect submarines," he said.

Empedrad said the Navy will continue monitoring for submarines. He added that sonar capability will be placed in the BRP Del Pilar.

"When the time comes we will have a lot of ships that will be able to detect the presence of submarines so it's nice so that we will now where they are," he added.

However, Empedrad noted the challenges the Philippine Navy should address in having such capabilities.

"These are the challenges.... what will happen in the near future... what are the doctrines involved here? Can you immediately fire a torpedo to destroy submarines? These are the challenges. There are many new capabilities that we do not have before modernizing our navy is very challenging," he said.

Empedrad also emphasized the importance of acquiring submarines for the Philippine Navy.

"If you want other nations to respect the capability of our Philippine Navy, give us submarines. We need submarines if we want to get the respect of other countries," he said.

The acquisition of submarines is part of the second horizon of the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Empedrad said acquisition of submarines, which cost around P 70 billion, was approved by President Rodrigo Duterte in principle.

"I presented it to the president and he approved it in principle. Our concern is where we will get the budget. But I think when Secretary of National Defense went to France, he was able to talk to France maybe his counterpart and I think they are willing to provide us a loan package for a submarine program," he said.

"We came up with technical aspects of our submarine requirements with our technical working group and it (Scorpene Class Submarines)  fits our requirements... French government is willing to provide us a soft loan because we do not have the budget over a period of how many days were given foreign soft loan by the French government," he added. Robina Asido/DMS