Navy tests Swedish combat boat today

The ill-equipped Philippine Navy will test today a modern patrol seacraft being offered by a Swedish company to upgrade the country’s defense capability and interdict smugglers, poachers, illegal immigrants and terrorists.

Navy spokesman Commander Geronimo Malabanan said Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Dionisio Santiago will lead the defense and military officials who will witness the demonstration of the Swedish-made Combat Boat 90H at the Navy headquarters on Roxas Boulevard in Manila.

"It is an offer from a Swedish firm which we can use for stealth and assault operations by our Marines and elements of the Navy SWAG (Special Warfare Group)," Malabanan said.

He identified the Swedish firm as Dockstavarvet, a private corporation under the supervision of the Sweden Defense Agency.

He could not say how much the boat costs.

According to Malabanan, tens of billions of pesos are lost in terms of revenues and natural resources due to smuggling and poaching by foreign vessels.

Malabanan said the entry of suspected terrorists, drug smugglers and even fugitives who take advantage of the country’s extensive coastline and porous borders could be minimized with additional naval patrol craft.

He pointed out that Abu Sayyaf bandits in Mindanao often elude military dragnets by escaping to other islands using souped-up pumpboats that could outrun naval vessels.

At present, the Navy has a fleet of 116 vessels but only 51 are being used for maritime law enforcement and border patrols, seaborne combat and amphibious operations, disaster response and search and rescue operations.

Malabanan said the Philippine coastline is twice as long as that of the United States.

At the same time, Malabanan said they are expecting the delivery sometime next year of a Cyclone-type patrol ship from the US as part of security assistance to the Philippines.

Since the 1990s, the Dockstavarvet has supplied over 140 of such combat boats to the Norwegian and Swedish navies operating under severe weather conditions in the Baltic Sea and the coast of Norway.

The 190-ton vessels can make rough landings on all types of shorelines and has a top speed of over 40 knots.

It can carry 41 fully armed soldiers or 4.5 tons of cargo and can be mounted with heavy machine guns and light missile batteries using Seaborne Hellfire Shore Defense System.

More advanced Dockstavarvet craft are also being used by Malaysia to patrol its territorial waters, the Navy said. –Paolo Romero