THE Department of National Defense has signed a contract with Hyundai of South Korea to build two brand new frigate worth P15.7 billion for the Navy.
According to Defense Undersecretary Raymundo Elefante said the contract, signed by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, is the first big-ticket item entered into with a foreign supplier by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“This is the first time for our Navy to have a modern frigate and it will be additional, of course, to the fleet as part of our modernization,” Elefante said.
The cost of the warship does not include the amount of armaments that would be installed as this would be a separate contract.
The frigate would be an added asset of the Navy’s mandate to patrol and defend the country’s territorial waters especially in the West Philippine Sea where China has been in a grabbing spree of territories inside the exclusive economic zone despite the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration by junking Beijing’s excessive “nine-dash line” claim in the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Elefante who was currently in Japan said over a phone interview that the DND is set to acquire the lease of five TC9 patrol aircrafts.
The long-range patrol aircrafts are also a boost to the capability of the Air Force for aerial patrol and surveillance in the WPS and other parts of the country.
He said Japan would be leasing the four aircrafts to the Armed Forces of the Philippines for $7,000 per year and only $200 for the fifth one because it is already an old one.
“In the contract, we can lease and use the aircrafts as long as we want to use them. There is no expiration,” Elefante said.