The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Philippine Navy will soon have its second warship, a United States congressman announced in Washington D.C. Tuesday this week.

In a hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on US-Philippine relations, California Rep. Ed Royce said that the review on the transfer of a US Coast Guard vessel are almost finished and that the Philippines will soon acquire another ship from the US.

“I am pleased to report that the congressional review process for another ship – Coast Guard cutter Dallas – wraps up this week. It should soon be on its way to Manila,” he was quoted saying in a Philippine Star article.

The US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Dallas is a high-endurance vessel commissioned in 1967. According to the Inquirer, the ship will be transferred to the Philippine Navy under a program that offers “excess defense articles” to foreign partners in support of US national security and foreign policy objectives.

The announcement of the transfer came shortly after the Obama administration's efforts to forge stronger ties with Southeast Asian nations amid the increasing demands and influence of China in the region.

“Aggressive Chinese claims on the South China Sea – or the West Philippine Sea as it is referred to in Manila – are driving the nations of Southeast Asia to seek closer US ties,” Royce added.

Spratlys tension

The Philippines and China – along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan – have rival claims to some parts of the Spratly islands in the West Philippine Sea. The contested region is believed to hold huge deposits of fossil fuels.

Last year, the US Congress approved the transfer to the Philippine Navy of Hamilton, another 1967-commissioned US Coast Guard cutter. Bangkok Post reported that the warship – later renamed BRP (Barko ng Republika ng Pilipinas) Gregorio Del Pilar – was “made the flagship of (the country's) notoriously dilapidated navy.” The vessel, which was commission in December 2011, has since been patrolling the waters of the West Philippine Sea.

Recently, defense officials confirmed a Washington Post report saying that some Philippine officials are “in talks with the Obama administration about expanding American military presence” in the country. The US welcomed the offer of deploying more American troops but assured the public that “there’s no aspiration for bases in Southeast Asia.”

US Senator and former US presidential candidate John McCain even met with Aquino, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin to discuss the matter.

The plan of increasing American troops in the country was met with criticisms, with one youth group saying that this move will “legitimize US intervention in the country.” An editorial in a Chinese newspaper, meanwhile, called their government to economically punish the Philippines for the proposal.

In reaction to the article, the Inquirer reported that Del Rosario urged Beijing to fully concur with Manila’s stated position of peacefully resolving the Spratlys dispute in accordance with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos.

The country's second warship, which was inspected by the Philippine Navy officials last October, is expected to arrive in the country on the first half of 2012. It will be deployed in the West Philippine Sea.