Locally built Ships for Philippine Navy and Coast Guard

Local Shipbuilding in the Philippines

Locally building Ships for Philippine Navy and Coast Guard

So, supposedly I have read in the news we are receiving a second New Old Ships for the Navy, another Hamilton Class cutter renamed as BRP Ramon Alcaraz from the United States, years before we also received another and was named BRP Gregorio Del Pillar. The platform and performance is good, but its already old, maintaining these old ship is going to be costly. But because of time constraint that we really need a patrol ship ASAP to guard West Philippine Sea then it is a decision that has to be made. But why don't they just lease some patrol ship until they can get new ones.

Okay going to the point, The Philippines is the 4th Largest Shipbuilder in the world according to the news. The Philippines has been building huge commercial ship, just recently the largest ship that was built is a Greek owned ship M/V Argolikos ($60Million) in a Hanjin shipyard, its a huge commercial cargo ship.

Militarily, the Philippines has made some ships and boat like a Multi-purpose Attack Craft and a Landing Craft Utility Transport Ship the BRP Tagbanua ($5Million). If that is so, why are we still buying ships abroad? why don't we just build one for ourselves. Typically we could do simple Offshore Lightweight Patrol Ships at first that do not contain any military grade engineering like complicated armor protection nor stealth components. A simple Offshore Patrol Ship hulled with guns, a cannon, engines, radar, complements and endurance, helipad, even smaller stand alone missiles if desired. The U.S. Coast Guard Hamilton Cutters was donated by the United States for free but we have to pay for the refurbishment ($10Million), in which the cost of refurbishment and maintaining the old ship can actually build you a brand new one locally saving you of maintenance nightmare and gives local economic benefits.

Building ships locally can benefit the economy, It will give jobs to a lot of people and will create an Industry that the Philippine itself would be exporting more ships even for the military like what Indonesia is now doing, why do our government have a mindset of buying abroad instead of making local one even though we have the capability to do so? Make ships locally and contract foreign weapons system manufacturer is a win win solution.

Recently the Coast Guard will purchase 10 brand new Patrol Ships, and that is brand new with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA), JICA then proposed that 5 of the ships will be build in Japan and the other 5 will be built locally in the Philippines, but according to the news, a Philippine coast guard officer just wants all to be build in Japan. What? Okay I don't blame him, he is a coast guard officer after all, but any sensible Economic Agency in the Philippines like National Economic Development Authority(NEDA) should have interfere to build the 5 ships locally to benefit our economy and to increase our skills in ship building.

If you have seen economic parks in the country, when time out comes, you would see thousands of workers going out and in the outside, businesses benefits and flourishes, from stores to transports, everything is inter connected. And those people with salaries in their pocket would be spending on products and services within the county, making our economy healthier.

Come on Guys in the Government, you should reduce and tone down giving tax money to some people through dole outs like the Pork Barrel or Conditional Cash Transfer, but you should be providing them jobs by making Industries. And Shipbuilding Industry is one of them that needed support, just building your ships locally is a great help to our industry instead of buying ships abroad.