The Philippine Navy (PN) retired four vessels on 1 March, including its last two Tomas Batilo (Sea Dolphin)-class fast attack craft, its final Rizal (Auk)-class corvette, and a PCE 827 (Miguel Malvar)-class corvette, the latter two of which had been launched in the early 1940s.
The vessels – fast attack craft BRP Salvador Abcede (pennant number PC 114) and BRP Emilio Liwanag (PC 118), and legacy corvettes BRP Quezon (PS 70) and BRP Pangasinan (PS 31) – were decommissioned in a ceremony held on 1 March at the Captain Salvo Pier of the Naval Base Heracleo Alano at Sangley Point, Cavite City.
As Janes reported, Salvador Abcede and Emilio Liwanag are ex-South Korean attack craft that were commissioned by the PN in 1996 and 2011 respectively, and were part of the service’s littoral combat force.
As for the corvettes, the United States transferred Pangasinan to the Philippines in July 1948 and Quezon in August 1967. Both vessels became part of the PN’s offshore combat force but in recent years were deployed mostly for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) duties.
The PN decommissioned four vessels (the first four from right to left) in a ceremony held on 1 March at Naval Base Heracleo Alano at Sangley Point, Cavite City. They included the service’s last two Tomas Batilo-class fast attack craft, its final Rizal (Auk)-class corvette, and a PCE 827-class corvette. The fifth ship on the image (first from left to right, with pennant 550) was not decommissioned. (Philippine Navy)
On 26 February, the state-owned Philippine News Agency (PNA) had quoted PN chief Vice Admiral Giovanni Carlo Bacordo as saying that recently retired ships needed to be decommissioned because they were too old and “costly to maintain and operate”.
Following the decommissioning of Quezon,
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