Submarine acquisition of the Philippines may have gone out of favor under BBM

Submarine acquisition of the Philippines may have gone out of favor under BBM, as per a former Admiral of the Philippine Navy

The retired Rear Admiral Rommel Jude Ong, a former Vice Commander of the Philippine Navy (PN) recently wrote for the Rappler (yuck) News Publication stating his Observation that the acquisition of Submarines may have gone out of favor already under this Administration of Bong Bong Marcos (BBM).

He is basing this Opinion on a recent Interview of Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro who said that the PN should look at Unmanned Systems or Drones as an Alternative instead. Ong argued in his Article for keeping the Submarine buy, but in the End says that if the Department of National Defense (DND) really wants to scrap the Program, then it should do so soon, and officially.

Here is the Link to the Article at the Rappler Website: https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/opinion-navy-submarine-program-challenges/

MY THOUGHTS:
I have always been a Proponent for the PN acquiring Subs based on the Lessons of the Falklands War where Argentina’s Submarines were the only ones left fighting the Naval Forces of the United Kingdom (UK) after the UK’s own Submarine sank Argentina’s biggest Battleship early in the War.

That forced almost the entire Argentinian Navy to run and stay in Port, leaving only their Subs to fight the UK. Vietnam also as of now has their Submarines as the “Tip of the Spear” of their Navy, they don’t have Surface Combatants that are larger than 103 meters, smaller than our Jose Rizal class Frigates.

But then again, I do understand the Issues with acquiring Submarines, particularly the Fact that it takes too long for them to be built. All of the Manufacturers that are offering their Subs to the PN that I have read always said it will take them around eight Years to build two Subs.

For that same amount of time, you can already build at least twice that number of Frigates already, or around four. And at less cost also, as the Frigates we are getting costs are only around Usd 300-400 million each, while the Subs costs around Usd 500 million to Usd 1 billion each.

The stunning success of Land-based Cruise Missiles and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) by Ukraine against the powerful Russian Navy in their ongoing War also seem to indicate that those Weapons will be better Cost-Effective Alternatives to the much more expensive Submarines.

In Fact I have seen some American Defense Articles talking about getting these USVs instead specifically for the Philippines, so that will just strengthen the Argument of their acquisition to our Defense Secretary since he is very much Pro-United States (US) already.

This will also help the BBM Government spend less since it seems that its Php 2 trillion Modernization Program for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is mostly just Hype, it has not allocated sure Funding for the acquisitions any more than what the Administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte has.

The BBM Government can now say, “we’re not buying Submarines not because we can’t afford to, but because there are cheaper and effective Alternatives like Cruise Missiles and USVs which are available”, ahem, char, LOL.

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