Navy to air-drop X’mas presents to soldiers on old shipwreck

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan, Philippines—The Philippine Navy announced on Friday it will send an aircraft to Ayungin Shoal in the disputed Spratlys before Christmas to air-drop gifts and donations pooled by volunteer groups for soldiers stationed on a shipwreck to guard territory claimed by the Philippines.

The air drop has so far been the main method used by the Philippine military in Palawan to resupply the small contingent of soldiers deployed in Ayungin Shoal, which is also being claimed by China and several other countries.

Naval officials said because there is no more scheduled supply run to the Kalayaan Island Group in December, they would organize the air drop operation solely to bring the gifts to the soldiers.

“We don’t often use this method of resupply anymore because it poses a greater risk both to the airmen and the people who are the recipients, but we want to value the efforts of these groups,” said naval pilot Lt. Herbert Estabillo.

The gift packages were donated by former cadets and solicited from various social networking sites, primarily Facebook. The donations include  food, personal sanitation kits, batteries, flashlights, reading materials and personal letters.

“These packages will be sent through air drop by pilots and crew of the Naval Air Group, Philippine Navy,” Estabillo added.

The donations include items raised by the Cadet Alumni Organization of the UP Military Science and Tactics Department and two Facebook groups, #pagasaKIG and #Timawa Donation Group.

“Through this kind of initiative the three organizations hope to encourage other private organizations to support Philippine soldiers detailed at the KIG,” Estabillo said.